Pence makes a strong case for an open solution for digital rights management. The question for many is whether any of the current offerings really qualify.Here are Pence’s comments in full:

The Future of Online Music: Why Closed Platforms Will Fail
By Dr. William Pence, CTO, Napster

Recently, with the announcement that Microsoft will be pursuing its own music solution, similar in spirit to the Apple offering, there has been a flood of speculation about the fate of Microsoft’s PlaysforSure platform, currently employed by virtually every online music provider in the industry. Everyone except for Apple, that is.

Pundits have concluded that Microsoft will abandon PlaysforSure, leaving online music services like Napster, MTV, Yahoo Music, Rhapsody, and presumably even emerging video services like Vongo and CinemaNow, without an underlying platform on which to offer content protection. While certainly an interesting assumption, the odds that PlaysforSure will be abandoned are not great.

But this argument kind of misses the larger point, which is: What kind of online music industry do consumers and content providers want to create over the coming years?

Napster adopted PlaysforSure, as did most other services, for one basic reason: It provides an open, flexible, interoperable platform, which allows consumers to pick from multiple service providers, multiple offerings (for example, purchase a la carte or subscribe), and from multiple device manufacturers. While many of us were cautiously optimistic about the platform’s long-term viability, the choice in this case was and continues to be driven by a simple vision for how this industry should evolve and work now and in the future.

After all, the description I provided above (open, flexible, interoperable) is not just some techno-speak, it describes the model that the PC industry has employed very successfully for the last twenty years. It is the same model that has enabled orders-of-magnitude reductions in the cost of computers and peripheral equipment, while creating hundreds of new companies offering unique innovations, including the very online digital music revolution of which we speak today.

But forget about the PC industry and its history, and think about music. Clearly, we believe that digital music is well on its way to becoming the primary format for consumers, and it’s happening much sooner than people once imagined. But can you imagine a global music industry where you can only buy music from two companies? Does anyone believe that consumers will tolerate that type of marketplace over the long term, or that such a market will continue to foster innovation?

For the last fifty years, the music industry has always had an open, standard format, whether it was the LP, cassette, or CD. There is simply no precedent for a “single-distributor” content industry, and even when there have been format wars (VHS/Beta or currently with Bluray and HD-DVD), the outcome is such that the winning format is generally available for use by all content providers and all device makers. Why? Because the open, interoperable marketplace has always been critical to widespread consumption of entertainment. Put simply, “open” systems win over time, and closed systems fail.

Microsoft has profited handsomely from having created a de facto standard for the personal computer, and desires to continue to profit from that franchise for years to come. That is why it is very much in their interest to keep entertainment solutions open as part of that platform, and why they are more likely to continue to support PlaysforSure, even as they hedge their bets and offer closed offerings alongside. The XBox is a perfect example of this trend. XBox did not kill PC games, and did not result in any less effort to enable and support their creation on PCs.

As the closest thing to an open platform, and notwithstanding the hype otherwise, PlaysforSure has actually made remarkable progress over the last few years. Specifically, the Microsoft DRM is being broadly adopted by virtually every technology company involved in digital media including Dell, HP, Samsung, SanDisk, Napster, Real Networks, Yahoo, MTV and now by mobile handset manufacturers poised to un-seat the iPod such as Nokia and Motorola. And PlaysforSure has done so for the simple reason that it is open, freely licensable, and adopted by multiple providers and devices. As long as it remains the best open platform offering, companies such as Napster will continue to support it.

In the event that Microsoft abandons its own DRM platform, which I view as remote for the reasons stated, there are plenty of technology offerings which would fill the vacuum, and which Napster and other services could adopt. It is important to note that even today, Napster content is offered in multiple formats. Our mobile service, for example, uses AAC files secured with DRM technology from the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA), and our free, advertising-supported offering relies on MP3 and Flash, and employs no DRM. If PlaysforSure were to be left to whither and die, as some speculate, established DRM systems such as OMA and others are waiting in the wings to fill the vacuum. Anyone with an interest in digital music would be in the market for a solution, and don’t forget that when I say that I am essentially talking about the entire consumer electronics industry.

Alternatively, the disappearance of an open platform could spell the end of DRM technology altogether, at least for digital music. Since I believe strongly that the market in the end must and will be based on interoperable digital formats, if DRM is used to erect barriers to that goal, then there is no question it will be swept aside, and the industry may end up with what many have believed was the obvious choice from the beginning: open MP3 files.

Either way, Napster has the tools in place to adapt to whichever way the environment evolves and will remain committed to the common-sense goal of helping to shape a music industry that actually benefits consumers over the long-term.

Pence’s comments are in response to an article posted recently at Wired.