Steve Jobs once agreed with France’s DRM law

March 24, 2006 | Matt Marshall | Comments | |
jobs_0.jpg

You may have heard: France has drafted a law that would require Apple Computer to break open its iTunes music store and iPod players so that rivals can offer compatible services and players.

There has been a lot of hoopla.

But check out what Babak Nivi (a venture capitalist with Bessemer, but who is on temporary assignment helping out Songbird in biz dev) dug up and posted on his blog:

In 2002, Steve Jobs said, “If you legally acquire music, you need to have the right to manage it on all other devices that you own.”

In 2006, France said, “The consumer must be able to listen to the music they have bought on no matter what platform.”

Sounds like Steve agrees with France.

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Matt Marshall is editor and CEO of VentureBeat. Follow him on Twitter at @mmarshall, and follow VentureBeat on Twitter at @venturebeat.

  • Thanks for the link Matt! By the way, my name is "Babak Nivi". You're not the first! And I don't really help the situation since I go by "Nivi".
  • Nivi,

    Sorry about that. Have changed.

    Marshall Matt
  • Does Apple's licenses with the music industry specifically cover the type of DRM they were using, and restrictions on the release of source code related to that DRM?

    He could very well still agree with the french DRM law, but would have been unable to reconcile that with the current state of Apple's iTunes success. I dont agree with Apple's current stance, but I am not particularly surprised at it.
  • I really like this picture of Steve Jobs! Sorry if this is off the topic, but I can't help it:-).