Apple Music Subscriptions Rumors Come From Company With DRM Agenda

I wrote a piece last week about why I thought Apple (AAPL) offering subscription music was not going to happen. That all got started by an article on CNN Money that quoted the CEO of a company I'd never heard of, INTENT Mediaworks, as saying that he thought Apple Computer would sell subscriptions within six months. So imagine my surprise today when I saw this Business Wire article noting that INTENT MediaWorks just raised $10 million in Series B funding. What's their product? Digital Rights Management [DRM] software that can be attached to files that then can be distributed via peer-to-peer (P2P) networks.

Now Series B funding is typically money to sell and market a product and to begin ramping sales. Isn't it curious that the CEO's comment seems to claim that the largest seller of digital music might need a new and different type of DRM software for a future product?

Let's think this through, though. If Apple were actually a likely prospect for INTENT's product, how do you think Steve Jobs would have reacted to INTENT's CEO giving a quote like that to CNN? Knowing Steve's penchant for secrecy and the attention given that CNN quote, if INTENT was ever on any list to be a supplier to Apple, it just lost its spot.

Now, we're all in favor of P2P distribution, and it's possible that this quote was just a small company CEO looking for some free publicity through his connections with a local Atlanta news outlet. But there's also no question INTENT stood to benefit from adding Apple's imprimatur to its business plan, even if Apple had no involvement with the company. I'd take their claims that Apple is going to offer subscriptions with a large grain of salt -- one that appears to have been paid for handsomely by the venture capital community.