Apple Skips US Congress DRM Hearing

At a U.S. House of Representatives hearing on digital music Wednesday, there was one party notably missing: Apple. The company, which has a solid grip on 75 percent of the music download industry, reportedly declined to appear in front of the Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property.

The snub angered Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, subcommittee chairman.

Calling Apple's decision not to testify a mistake, Rep. Smith said that any company of any industry with market share as large as Apple's needs "to step up to the plate when it comes to testifying on policy issues that impact their industry."

Experts who were present, however, all agreed that bringing the government in to settle on a digital rights management (DRM) standard was not the answer, and that the industry itself had to decide on how best to implement a single solution across all services.

According to Rep. Smith, legitimate questions have been raised over the issue of interoperability, and whether proprietary DRM is a good or bad thing for consumers. A recent example of this would be the cat-and-mouse game between Apple and RealNetworks, where Real attempted to gain access to the iPod through its controversial Harmony technology.

While most on the committee supported interoperability, some saw government involvement as a bad thing. "Government intervention can probably prohibit innovation," Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich said.