brainwagon

Dear me. Macrovision has its panties all in a bunch over Steve Jobs’ recent “Open Letter” which has received a lot of attention in the blogosphere.

Macrovision’s Response to Steve Jobs’ Open Letter

It contains a lot of howlers, but I thought I’d bring your attention to a few of them.

Macrovision admonishes Steve by saying that DRM “is broader than just music”. Indeed? Do you think that Jobs, the single largest stockholder in Disney, doesn’t realize that?

Macrovision claims that DRM increases consumer value. Oh really? If I buy a song on iTunes, I can transfer it to only a limited number of devices. If I pirate it, I can copy it to any device I own. How is my consumer value enhanced? Macrovision says “consumers who want to consume content on only a single device can pay less than those who want to use it across all of their entertainment areas – vacation homes, cars, different devices and remotely”. What they are arguing is that they want you to pay for the same content multiple times. Since providing those bits to you is very cheap for them, I can understand why they might like this business model, but it’s simply astounding to say that it adds customer value.

There is also a certain amount of irony in the claim that DRM needs to be interoperable and open. Macrovision is of course has made millions by licensing their exclusive technology. I’m sure they’d be happy to help Steve out by licensing their technology to him, whether it is actually effective or not.