File under Straws: clutching at. Not content with trying to make the internet service providers police copyrighted content moving across their networks, NBC Universal now wants iTunes to include anti-piracy tools which would apply not just to music from the iTunes Store but all media in your library, including music you have ripped yourself.

While NBC's George Kliavkoff didn't name iTunes or the iPod, do you think the highlighted parts of his statement could refer to anything else?

If you look at studies about MP3 players, especially leading MP3 players and what portion of that content is pirated, and think about how that content gets onto that device, it has to go through a gatekeeping piece of software, which would be a convenient place to put some antipiracy measures.

This is part of NBC's plan to get its TV shows back on iTunes so it can sell more than two or three downloads a month. The sticking points are the same – NBC wants to control the pricing – but this looks like a new "negotiation" tactic: By implying that iTunes is a tool for piracy, Kliavkoff thinks he can strong-arm Apple into backing down.

Let's think for a moment what would happen if Apple actually did police the content on your computer. Nobody would use iTunes. Not only would NBC lose a marketplace, but Apple would lose the link that makes buying an iPod worthwhile: the ease of buying and managing content before transferring it to the player. Look at the fuss created when Apple put the Mini-Store into iTunes, which was just a music recommendation engine like Last.fm.

In short, Apple would never agree to snooping content. Pirated music and music ripped legitimately from CDs is the majority of most music libraries. If Apple started dickering with this, then the iTunes Store would become irrelevant because people wouldn't be using iTunes at all.

Kliavkoff surely knows this and it's hard to see what he hopes to achieve. His arguments seem particularly desperate in the light of two other comments he made:

It's really difficult for us to work with any distribution partner who says 'Here's the wholesale price and the retail price,' especially when the price doesn't reflect the full value of the product.

And

The music industry guys would have something to say about how the pricing has affected their product over the last few years.

One word: BitTorrent. NBC, along with the "music industry guys", is competing with free. Free music, free movies and free TV shows. ITunes is about the only legal way to get this stuff easily. Instead of worrying that "the price doesn't reflect the full value of the product", you should be thankful that there are still people willing to pay for your DRM encrusted crap.

NBC to Apple: Build antipiracy into iTune [CNET]