Will Steve Jobs drop iTunes DRM in a heartbeat?

It's been a couple of hours since Steve Jobs announced that he doesn't like DRM and wants to get rid of it (this is new news -- Apple's previous position on this was that they'd have DRM even if the record companies didn't want it). He urges DRM activists to lobby Europe's governments to force European record giants like Sony-BMG, EMI and Universal to license their music to the iTunes Music Store without DRM -- and promises that he'd drop the iTunes DRM in a heartbeat if only he could.

Well, this is pretty excellent news! Now, let's see if Steve means it. A bunch of commentators from around the Web have weighed in on this:

• John Buckman, owner of the Creative Commons label Magnatune, wrote last February that "So far, the few stores I've mentioned the DRM issue to (iTunes, MSN Music) have told me that their infrastructure is 100% DRM, and that they can't make any exceptions." (via Hack the Planet)
• "DVD" Jon Johansen -- who has cracked many iTunes versions in the past, counters, "It should not take Apple’s iTunes team more than 2-3 days to implement a solution for not wrapping content with FairPlay when the content owner does not mandate DRM. This could be done in a completely transparent way and would not be confusing to the users."
• Johansen has some more analysis of Jobs's announcement: Jobs claims that they don't sell many iTunes per iPod, so there's not much lock-in. This is a different iTune from the one Steve sang at the 2004 MacWorld, where he boasted that "one customer had bought $29,500 worth of music."

  Jon also points out that Steve's talking out of his ass when he says that licensing Apple's DRM to competitors will make it less secure: "Microsoft’s Windows Media DRM 10 (marketing name PlaysForSure) has not had more security breaches than FairPlay despite the fact that it has been licensed to dozens of companies... Microsoft’s decision to make the Zune DRM a closed system was a business decision and had nothing to do with DRM security."

• Steve Page from Barenaked Ladies is ready to take Steve Jobs up on his "in a heartbeat" offer to sell BNL's music without DRM.
• For that matter, EFF's Derek Slater points out that eMusic has a gigantic, DRM-free catalog of artists willing to offer their music without DRM -- all of whom are either already in the iTMS or could be, DRM-free "in a heartbeat."

This is a big day -- a huge day. If Steve Jobs comes through with his promise to offer DRM-free music from artists who will allow it, we're at the beginning of the end of the DRM wars. I look forward to the day when the iTunes Music Store catalog shows a little warning icon next to those few holdout tracks sold with DRM, a skull-and-crossbones to tell you that you're about to buy some poisonous bits.

Especially if Steve follows this up by offering iTunes videos -- especially the Pixar movies, which he has enormous influence over as the single largest shareholder in Disney -- without DRM! Link

Update: Lessig points out that Colin Mutchler has been asking to have his music sold without DRM through the iTunes Music Store for some time. It would be great to get a petition up from indie artists who are in the iTMS catalog and don't want DRM.