If you haven’t read Steve Jobs’ recent essay on DRM and the music industry then you really should read that before this. Needless to say, having the head of the largest purveyor of DRM-encoded music files speak out about the technology and instruct users as to how to effect change in the industry is quite landmark.

In short, Jobs makes the following key points:

• The music companies required and require Apple to use DRM.
• If that DRM is broken and remains broken, Apple loses the ability to sell their music.
• DRM-encoded music occupies approximately 3% of any given iPod, with the other 97% being from CDs, other stores, or other sources.
• The largest source of sold music is the CD, which has no DRM.
• Thus, DRM can’t solve the problem of piracy when a user can take a CD, encode it, and share it.

• As such, DRM serves no purpose and Apple would immediately cease using DRM if the music companies would let them.

For the most part, I believe him. There is, however, something fishy with the statement and reality.

It looks like I got a birthday gift and didn’t even know it. A fellow going by “sticktron” posted a nifty infographic detailing my previous Do-It-Yourself Smart Radio Station post. It’s certainly a bit easier to understand when you look at it this way. Note that the playlist detailed in the screenshot is unworkable due to them all being in one window, but the criteria are valid when used as detailed on the right.

This approach is based on the idea of a master playlist, which feeds off of several pools of potential songs. Each pool is created by a dynamic playlist—called Smart Playlists in iTunes/iPod—and updates itself constantly.

As your songs get listened to, rated, weeded out, given priority, etc., you will be continually upgrading the mix. It is TRULY your own personal Radio Station experience.

deviantART: Advanced Playlists for iTunes by ~sticktron,

More and more people seem to misunderstand the recent products from Apple. It’s like people see them and go, “I wouldn’t buy that, so why did they make that? Apple is [dying|dead|bankrupt|Republican]! The horror!”

Umm, so, yeah. There’s approximately 5,999,999,999 other people in this world and I’m guessing, it’s just a wild guess, that some of them might have different opinions.

A while ago I read a tip somewhere about how to make a few smart playlists work with each other to make a mix of music for a smaller iPod. After thinking for a short time I realized I could make a perfect little ever-changing radio station out of iTunes with a similar methodology. Start by considering what makes a good radio station (I know, it’s been a while…):

• Your favorite music.
• A balance of new and old music.
• A moderate variety. You want to hear some songs repeatedly, but not at close intervals.
• New old music. Don’t just play the same old songs, cycle them in and out.

• Old new music. If a newer song is really good, keep it in rotation as an old song.

iTunes has a way to handle all of this. The core here is that you’re going to have to rate all of your music for this to work. Unrated music will not make it into rotation. It doesn’t have to be accurate right now. You can go find a favorite artist and mark all the tracks as fives or find all your audio books and mark them twos or something. Just get some ratings in. As your ratings change, so will the station.

Edit menu, Show Duplicate Songs.

Rockin’.

In the same pen-stroke as the author of The Audio War writes:

Apple is making corporate enemies by refusing to license FairPlay.

He also writes:

Except Hewlett-Packard (which has an agreement to sell HP-branded iPods) and Motorola (which plans to launch phones compatible with songs from Apple’s iTunes Music Store).

Make up your mind. Either they’re not cooperating or they’re not cooperating with the people you want them to. There is a huge-ass difference between the two. Apple seems to want a dead-end, no transfer device that only works with iTMS. If that’s what they want, make it and offer it to them. They are, contrary to the opinion of self-important “digital rights activists”, under no obligation to license FairPlay to anyone that is willing to cough up cash. This isn’t Microsoft, the literal whore of the software world, willing to sell itself out for any penny you have under the couch (and then find a way to take the couch once you’re “in”). This is Apple, for which there is no phrase that consistently fits these days other than “Holy shit, look at the stock today!”