Further to the whole Apple-Cisco saga, New Paradigm colleague Paul Barter has an interesting piece in the Financial Post that recounts Apple’s long history of intellectual property snafus. Paul goes back to beginning where Apple ran into trouble with Beatles’ record label over the Apple trademark. He then goes on to discuss Apple’s run-ins with Microsoft over the GUI for Windows and a litany of other events.

One thing Paul didn’t mention was Steve Jobs’ recent call to do away with DRM for music. Now I tend to agree with Steve Jobs that DRM is an unworkable idea that ultimately harms the industry more than it helps. But once again, it smacks of hypocrisy. After all, tracks bought on iTunes won’t play on rival digital music devices and many governments in Europe, most notably France, are treating the dual success of iPods and the iTunes online store as a possible breach of antitrust laws. Last year, Apple assailed proposed French legislation that would have banned restrictions on where iTunes’ tracks will play as “state-sponsored piracy.”

Now Jobs has softened his position on this and claims that Apple was bullied into the decision to use DRM in the first place by the “big four” music labels who control some 70% of the world recorded music. Nevertheless, this is yet one more example of a rather muddled position on intellectual property. In all fairness to Apple, I have a hard time thinking of a single company in the media and technology world that hasn’t struggled with the changing economics of intellectual property. The rules and norms are constantly changing, so perhaps consistency is too much to ask.