Macrovision is the latest company to jump on the open letter bandwagon with its response to the comments Apple CEO Steve Jobs made against digital rights management copy protection. CEO Fred Amoroso states he feels Mr. Jobs failed to look beyond the copy protection in music, and is offering the help of his company to turn FairPlay into a DRM technology every content provider can use.

As one of the biggest names in the copy protection market, Macrovision is probably in one of the best positions to understand how to implement DRM, and also in a position to want that technology to remain relevant. The copy protection scheme Macrovision offers can be found in music, movies, video games, and computer applications.

One of the benefits of DRM, according to Mr. Amoroso, is that it increases instead of decreases the value of the content consumers are buying.

"DRM is uniquely suitable for metering usage rights, so that consumers who don't want to own content, such as a movie, can 'rent' it," he said. "Similarly, consumers who want to consume content on only a single device can pay less than those who want to use it across all of their entertainment areas... Abandoning DRM now will unnecessarily doom all consumers to a 'one size fits all' situation that will increase costs for many of them."

He also claimed that without DRM to keep users from stealing content, the music and movie industry would pull their media from the market. In effect, he is saying that the entertainment industry sees all consumers as criminals out to steal music and movies.

Mr. Jobs made expressed his views against digital rights management in an open letter posted on the Apple Web site on February 6. In the letter, he called DRM ineffectual, and stated that Apple would remove the copy protection in songs and videos sold at the iTunes Store if the recording industry would agree.

The letter from Mr. Jobs has earned responses from several companies. Some, including Yahoo! have voiced support for dropping DRM. Others, including Microsoft and the RIAA are opposed to removing the technology.