Oddly, Jobs Has Nothing to Say About Video DRM...

Before I became a blogger, I followed Apple for years. Never once in the 12 years I've observed Apple's foibles online have I encountered anything as baffling as Steve Jobs's "Thoughts on Music" essay that created such a buzz today.

If you haven't seen it, give it a read and then come back. I'll be waiting. OK. Notice anything weird? That's right. Steve's entire argument rests on the idea that digital rights management is ineffective at stopping music piracy, but he has nothing to say about video. Ponder that, then meet me after the jump.

Just how self-contradictory is Steve's argument? Consider this paragraph:

Why would the big four music companies agree to let Apple and othersdistribute their music without using DRM systems to protect it? Thesimplest answer is because DRMs haven’t worked, and may never work, tohalt music piracy. Though the big four music companies require that alltheir music sold online be protected with DRMs, these same musiccompanies continue to sell billions of CDs a year which containcompletely unprotected music. That’s right! No DRM system was everdeveloped for the CD, so all the music distributed on CDs can be easilyuploaded to the Internet, then (illegally) downloaded and played on anycomputer or player.

But not a word for video, which was released in an accessible format, VHS, before the CD went mainstream, and whose copy-protection is minimal. People did and still do "illegally" copy video off their TVs. They then can be uploaded to the internet via DVD. Isn't this an argument against video DRM?

Apparently not, because commercial DVDs were invented with copy-protection built in. Which makes it more effective, or something. I can't say I get it.

Maybe -- and I know this is a big assumption, but just maybe this isn't about DRM for music and DRM for video. Maybe it's about Steve's relationships to both industries and the overall health of the industries. The iPod and iTunes are king of the heap for digital music. Record sales are down and there hasn't been a super-breakout artist in about five years. Steve can push on them.

The home video market is booming better than ever before. Apple, despite its movie and TV download sales, is a niche player at best in the market. The iPod isn't a killer app for this market (though the Apple TV might be). Either way, it seems a little bit weak of Steve to go for the jugular in music and pretend that DRM isn't an issue in the video market. Or even acknowledge that the video market exists.