The entire world knows that Steve Jobs (AAPL) wants music downloads to be free of digital rights management so that songs can be played cross-platform and stolen like CD content. His argument is perverse. Since CD content is already stolen, make downloads available to steal as well.
The executives at Hollywood’s big studios must be hanging garlic around their necks so that Jobs does not bite them the way he is record company managements. The film industry’s big lobbying operation, the Motion Picture Association of America, is putting a full-court press on in Washington to get legislators to help stop piracy of their content.
Part of Hollywood’s reasoning for better protection of its property is that it accounts for $10 billion in taxes and a trade surplus of $9.5 billion, according to the MPAA.
Bootleg DVDs of new movies are sold all over the world. The producers of the movie "Ray" claim 42 million illicit copies were sold in a five month period. The problem is, fundamentally, the other side of the coin of the Jobs "music without protection" proposal.
Steve Jobs probably isn’t going to be welcome at Warner (TWX) or 20th Century Fox (NWS) anytime soon.
Douglas A. McIntyre can be reached at [email protected]. He does not own securities in companies that he writes about.
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