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> and the major labels had no choice but to join on their terms. iTunes launched with DRM. It was eliminated from 2008.

by dingaling 5y ago

mattl 5y ago
It was also Mac only for the first 6 months or so.
- HNHatesUsers 5y ago
- jrnichols 5y ago
  and allowed you to stream your whole library to, well, pretty much anyone. early iTunes was pretty slick, in my opinion. We had so many shares streaming in the office. people curated playlists and clicked that share button. loved it.
  - mattl 5y ago
    Yeah it had a lot compared to the rest. Also probably the only one of those services where you can still play your collection.
matthewdgreen 5y ago
FairPlay DRM was an utter breath of fresh air compared to the DRM we were using at AT&T. There were other companies like InterTrust competing at the time to build incredibly-restrictive powerful DRM, and despite all this crazy work (many PhDs in cryptography!) the labels kept asking for more before they would begrudgingly put a few titles on sale. FairPlay DRM was "just good enough" to satisfy the DRM requirement while also being pretty easy to break, and it remained more or less regularly "broken" for many years. This didn't matter because it turned out that very few people pirated content by breaking the DRM (especially when you could just rip a CD yourself.) As you pointed out, Apple eventually got rid of it. In my later security evaluation career I saw a similar dynamic play out for other DRM companies, and even saw how corrupt the industry was. If you knew the right people or had enough market power your DRM would be "good enough", and if not: tough luck. Technical evaluation didn't matter.
tempnow987 5y ago
The DRM was totally reasonably. Even though it was hackable, you didn't really need to, at least in my use cases it was fine. I contrast that with some phone I bought before that supported some number of songs (nightmare), with zune (nightmare). Apple picked a level of lockdown that I'd guess for 80% of users didn't interfere. That compares to the other foks dramatically.
8ytecoder 5y ago
Wasn't it Amazon Music that first that launched without DRM?
- spicybright 5y ago
  I remember this being the case too.

> and the major labels had no choice but to join on their terms. iTunes launched with DRM. It was eliminated from 2008.

mattl 5y ago

It was also Mac only for the first 6 months or so.

HNHatesUsers 5y ago
jrnichols 5y ago
and allowed you to stream your whole library to, well, pretty much anyone. early iTunes was pretty slick, in my opinion. We had so many shares streaming in the office. people curated playlists and clicked that share button. loved it.
- mattl 5y ago
  Yeah it had a lot compared to the rest. Also probably the only one of those services where you can still play your collection.

matthewdgreen 5y ago

FairPlay DRM was an utter breath of fresh air compared to the DRM we were using at AT&T. There were other companies like InterTrust competing at the time to build incredibly-restrictive powerful DRM, and despite all this crazy work (many PhDs in cryptography!) the labels kept asking for more before they would begrudgingly put a few titles on sale. FairPlay DRM was "just good enough" to satisfy the DRM requirement while also being pretty easy to break, and it remained more or less regularly "broken" for many years. This didn't matter because it turned out that very few people pirated content by breaking the DRM (especially when you could just rip a CD yourself.) As you pointed out, Apple eventually got rid of it. In my later security evaluation career I saw a similar dynamic play out for other DRM companies, and even saw how corrupt the industry was. If you knew the right people or had enough market power your DRM would be "good enough", and if not: tough luck. Technical evaluation didn't matter.

tempnow987 5y ago

The DRM was totally reasonably. Even though it was hackable, you didn't really need to, at least in my use cases it was fine. I contrast that with some phone I bought before that supported some number of songs (nightmare), with zune (nightmare). Apple picked a level of lockdown that I'd guess for 80% of users didn't interfere. That compares to the other foks dramatically.

8ytecoder 5y ago

Wasn't it Amazon Music that first that launched without DRM?

spicybright 5y ago
I remember this being the case too.