Jobs urges labels to abandon DRM

February 07, 2007 Apple Inc. indicated it would open its iTunes store to other portable players besides its ubiquitous iPod if the world's major record labels abandoned the anti-piracy technology that serves as the industry's security blanket. Steve Jobs, Apple's chief executive, made the case for abolishing the protections known as "Digital Rights Management," or DRM, in an open letter posted Tuesday on the Cupertino-based company's Web site. Critics, though, derided the message as a disingenuous maneuver designed to soften a recent backlash in Europe, where iTunes' incompatibility with other portable music devices besides the iPod has been branded has anticompetitive.

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