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Consortium To Standardize Digital Rights Management, Take On Apple

Apple's Fairplay DRM is an optional service to content owners. Since it is proprietary, Apple can both make guarantees to content owners (if security is breached, Apple can force an update to every device wanting to load new Fairplay content), and offer consumers a fair deal (DRM'd content never dies; there is no "keep alive" callback to headquarters required, unlike other systems with guarantees).

The problem with a shared open standard is that once it's cracked, it can't be repaired, and content owners can't be compensated. Therefore it can't compete with Fairplay as an attractive DRM for content owners.

Apple does not in fact demand a monopoly on distribution; but only to distribute on its own terms.

The final solution some years hence may be that Fairplay is licensed broadly by means of Apple chips embedded in devices from all manufacturers.

The paradox for content owners is that no-one wants content until they are aware of it. An owner will pay to get his song on radio, yet wants paying for a consumer to hear it on demand. An industry wide "open" DRM is destined either to be cracked and bypassed (like DVD), or its protected content to be ignored and forgotten by consumers.

The industry needs to cut a long term deal to license Fairplay, in exchange for giving Apple distribution of its content.