Apple CEO Steve Jobs posted an open letter on Apple's web site where he gave his views on what the future of downloadable music should be like. His conclusion; the four main music publishing companies (Universal, Sony BMG, Warner and EMI) should dump their DRM protection systems and allow for all of their music to be downloaded for any MP3 player to use. Here's an excerpt:

Why would the big four music companies agree to let Apple and others distribute their music without using DRM systems to protect it? The simplest answer is because DRMs haven't worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy. Though the big four music companies require that all their music sold online be protected with DRMs, these same music companies continue to sell billions of CDs a year which contain completely unprotected music. That's right! No DRM system was ever developed for the CD, so all the music distributed on CDs can be easily uploaded to the Internet, then (illegally) downloaded and played on any computer or player.

In 2006, under 2 billion DRM-protected songs were sold worldwide by online stores, while over 20 billion songs were sold completely DRM-free and unprotected on CDs by the music companies themselves. The music companies sell the vast majority of their music DRM-free, and show no signs of changing this behavior, since the overwhelming majority of their revenues depend on selling CDs which must play in CD players that support no DRM system.

Kudos to Jobs, even if he has self-interested reasons for saying it.

Update: On the other side of the DRM debate is the RIAA, which has issued a rather interesting statement in response to Jobs. The RIAA apparently thinks Jobs is offering to license Apple's FairPlay DRM scheme and states, "Apple's offer to license Fairplay to other technology companies is a welcome breakthrough and would be a real victory for fans, artists and labels. There have been many services seeking a license to the Apple DRM. This would enable the interoperability that we have been urging for a very long time." Jobs' letter clearly stated that licensing FairPlay was a no-go because of security concerns.