Steve Jobs has written an open letter called "Thoughts on Music" to the big 4 music companies. In it, he urges them to drop their DRM restrictions on music.

It's very well written and Jobs like, in that it is aimed at helping the end user understand what DRM is and why he wants to abolish it. He opens by explaining a bit about Apples FairPlay DRM and the current way music is sold, then he looks at 3 possible paths for the future.

The first is the status quo. No brand interoperability. The second is Apple licensing FairPlay. He does an excellent job of explaining why that will never work - for the music industry not just Apple.

The last option is to abolish DRM protection on music completely. From reading various news reports, most people are missing the core paragraph.

Why would the big four music companies agree to let Apple and others distribute their music without using DRM systems to protect it? The simplest answer is because DRMs haven't worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy. ...

That's it in a nutshell. DRM hasn't stopped piracy and never will. If it did, the RIAA wouldn't be suing a guy for downloading 5 songs.

And Jobs releases some interesting internal polling data to hammer the point home.

Today's most popular iPod holds 1000 songs, and research tells us that the average iPod is nearly full. This means that only 22 out of 1000 songs, or under 3% of the music on the average iPod, is purchased from the iTunes store and protected with a DRM. The remaining 97% of the music is unprotected and playable on any player that can play the open formats. ...

As Jobs points out, most people start by ripping their own CDs. I had a 200 disk changer full before my iPod. It took me quite a bit of effort to rip them and I've since decided to re-rip them lossless. (dumb move the first time)

The music industry has a decision to make. Stick with the status quo that isn't working or embrace the digital age. I have purchased exactly ZERO songs from iTMS but if they where DRM free, I'd probably throw $25 a month for years at it. I bought over $2000 in CDs, before the digital music era and none since. I'd gladly pay for my music again.

I've already purchased the White Album on vinyl, cassette, 8-track and CD, why not AAC?

Look for more thoughts on Apple vs Microsoft's views on DRM in the future in this space soon.