Page 458 - (ISC)² CISSP Certified Information Systems Security Professional Official Study Guide

Music DRM

The music industry has battled pirates for years, dating back to the

days of homemade cassette tape duplication and carrying through
compact disc and digital formats. Music distribution companies
attempted to use a variety of DRM schemes, but most backed away
from the technology under pressure from consumers.

The use of DRM for purchased music slowed dramatically when,
facing this opposition, Apple rolled back their use of FairPlay DRM for
music sold through the iTunes Store. Apple co-founder Steve Jobs

foreshadowed this move when, in 2007, he issued an open letter to the
music industry calling on them to allow Apple to sell DRM-free music.
That letter read, in part:

The third alternative is to abolish DRMs entirely. Imagine a world
where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open

licensable formats. In such a world, any player can play music
purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is
playable on all players. This is clearly the best alternative for
consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat. If the big
four music companies would license Apple their music without the
requirement that it be protected with a DRM, we would switch to

selling only DRM-free music on our iTunes store. Every iPod ever
made will play this DRM-free music.

The full essay is no longer available on Apple’s website, but an
archived copy may be found at http://bit.ly/1TyBm5e.

Currently, the major use of DRM technology in music is for
subscription-based services such as Napster and Kazaa, which use
DRM to revoke a user’s access to downloaded music when their

subscription period ends.

Do the descriptions of DRM technology in this section

seem a little vague? There’s a reason for that: manufacturers
typically do not disclose the details of their DRM functionality due
to fears that pirates will use that information to defeat the DRM