RIAA Not Willing To Give Up On The DRM Dream

Steve Jobs’ anti-digital rights management screed from earlier this week has elicited a response from the Recording Industry Association of America, who, having already shown off their lousy math skills, are now putting their not-so-great reading comprehension on display:

Apple’s offer to license [the Apple DRM] 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.

Perhaps the RIAA’s Web-enabled computers, still crippled by the last remnants of the Sony rootkits they inadvertently installed a couple of years back, didn’t load the entirety of Jobs’ essay? In addition to skipping the essay’s anti-DRM railing, they missed this bit:

“Apple has concluded that if it licenses FairPlay to others, it can no longer guarantee to protect the music it licenses from the big four music companies.”

Unless that’s what the RIAA wants–all of the rigamarole and pain-in-the-ass aspects of DRM, but none of the “security” it allegedly offers. And honestly, given their recent track record, we’re not so willing to rule that idea out.

Jobs to DRM: Drop Dead [Bit Player, via Listening Post] Earlier: Steve Jobs To Record Labels: Tear Down Your DRM Wall