iTunes and DRM no Longer Synonymous!

[Jeff Campbell]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/01/06/itunes_store_goes_drm_free.html' target='_blank'>http://www.appleinsider.com/article...s_drm_free.html</a><br /><br /></div><p>"Apple Inc. is cutting the price of some songs in its market-leading&nbsp;iTunes&nbsp;online music store to 69 cents and plans to begin selling all tracks without&nbsp;copy protection."</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/at/auto/1231270069.usr105634.jpg" /></p><p>Started over 6 years ago, the<a href="http://www.apple.com/itunes/whatsnew/" target="_blank"> iTunes Store</a> has become the go-to place for music. &nbsp;<MORE /></p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/at/auto/1231286458.usr105634.jpg" /></p><p>During this time, iTunes has amassed library of approximately 10 million songs. An indicator of why they are the most popular online music site is the more than 75 million accounts that have been created, not to mention the over 6 billion songs that have been sold.&nbsp;In recent years, however, there has been some competition, mainly from Amazon.com's mp3 store that started offering DRM-free music in 2007.</p><p>Well, that disadvantage is now gone thanks to today's announcement from&nbsp;Apple's Marketing Director Phil Schiller. During his keynote at Macworld, he announced that 8 million of the approximately 10 million songs, called iTunes Plus, are going to be available, DRM-free, as of today. These songs will be available at the higher 256k bitrate and you will be able to upgrade your entire library to the DRM-free music by paying the difference between what you originally paid and the new price. The other approximately 2 million songs will be offered DRM-free by the end of March 2009.</p><p>Another change to the store is the pricing structure. iTunes is going to start reducing prices on some songs to 69 cents, and will have a three tier pricing structure: 69 cents for back catalog tracks, 99 cents for standard songs &nbsp;and $1.29 for new or popular releases. This is scheduled to start in April of 2009 and on the face of it appears to be appeasing the labels, who have wanted tiered pricing for some time.</p><p>So two new changes to the iTunes store, could there be more? Well I'm glad you asked!</p><p>iTunes will be open to not only WiFi access, but will now allow access via the 3G network. Finally! Not sure about any of you but I am not always around a convenient WiFi connection so this is great update.&nbsp;</p><p>You can read all about it at <a href="http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/01/06/itunes_store_goes_drm_free.html" target="_blank">Apple Insider</a> or direct from <a href="http://www.apple.com/itunes/whatsnew/" target="_blank">Apple</a>, and in my opinion, this is a welcome change! What do you think?</p><p>&nbsp;</p>

[doogald]

They are also offering a special deal to upgrade purchases to Plus for .30 a track, and albums for 30% of the current album price, but only if you do the whole shootin' match, it appears.

Trying to decide if it is worth the price . . .

[Pony99CA]

That's cool that you don't have to repurchase the music, but just pay the upgrade price. Of course, what if the "upgrade" price is negative (you paid $0.99 but the song is now $0.69)? ;)

Steve

[Jeff Campbell]

They are also offering a special deal to upgrade purchases to Plus for .30 a track, and albums for 30% of the current album price, but only if you do the whole shootin' match, it appears.

Trying to decide if it is worth the price . . .

When I bought a song the other day I was given the option of upgrading, and they gave me a total based on my library (80 gigs worth of music). Turned out to be $43 roughly, but I'm not sure if they based that on a certain period of purchases at the iTunes store based on my account or ? I'll do some more checking on this to see how they get the total but it's pretty cool they figure it out right at the store interface.

[crimsonsky]

I'm not sure I understand why you even have to pay an upgrade fee. I mean you ALREADY own the music. (Well, at least have rights to it - not sure how music ownership plays out with DRM). Also, I noted that it would cost me about $37 to upgrade my music. But obviously the whole catalog hasn't been upgraded because I own a LOT more DRM'ed music than this total would indicate.

I have a Blackberry and a couple Windows Mobile devices, but I don't use them to listen to music. That's why I have two iPods! So having non-DRM music isn't hugely important to me. The only real benefit that I can see to upgrading is the increased bitrate, which would make a difference. (I use Ultimate Ears Triple-Fi 10 Pros, and yes, I can hear the difference between 128 and 256). When iTunes initially offered DRM-free tracks from EMI, I did do the upgrade and I think it cost me about $17 down and even that wasn't all the music from EMI I had.

I just rebel at the thought of paying twice for the same music, even if it is only a third of the original cost.

[ucfgrad93]

While it is nice that Apple is allowing us to upgrade, I don't like the manner in which they are doing it. It is an all-or-nothing proposition. I would do it if I could a few songs at a time instead of all at once. And like crimsonsky I don't really need to have DRM free songs as I only listen to them on Apple devices.

[Vincent Ferrari]

I'm not sure I understand why you even have to pay an upgrade fee. I mean you ALREADY own the music. (Well, at least have rights to it - not sure how music ownership plays out with DRM).

You don't. Keep it DRM'ed. ;)

Putting my "Apple, Inc. Thought Predictor Hat" on, I think it's because:

A. The record labels don't want to give you another version of the track for free (they are scumbags, remember).

B. You are getting more functionality and better quality than you originally paid for.

While it is nice that Apple is allowing us to upgrade, I don't like the manner in which they are doing it. It is an all-or-nothing proposition. I would do it if I could a few songs at a time instead of all at once. And like crimsonsky I don't really need to have DRM free songs as I only listen to them on Apple devices.

I think that'll change, though. I think for now, they're pushing people to do it all, but eventually they'll just let you do it album by album (like they did with the original EMI changeover).

As for not needing the DRM removed, I definitely don't. I only did it because it makes making family movies and DVDs much easier and means I don't have to rebuy tracks on Amazon to get a good backing track for home movies and such.

Silly reason? Maybe, but that was the only time the Apple DRM got in my way.

FYI: I still have about 487 songs that are still DRM'ed after upgrading over 500 of them yesterday.

[Dyvim]

I paid around $24 to upgrade 23 singles and 8 albums (about 110 songs total). It's worth it to me to future-proof my music a bit and prepare for using it on non-Apple devices (heaven forbid), even though I'm only using it within the Apple ecosystem for now. I listen to my iTunes library music in my home stereo, so appreciate the improvement in quality; esp. since the tracks I purchase from iTunes tend to be some of my favorite ones.

Another 1 track was available this morning, so I did that too.

I still have 17 DRM-d iTunes tracks. We'll see if those can be upgraded by March '09 as promised.

Now I'd just like DRM-free movies and TV episodes. Yeah, right! I won't hold my breath on that one.

[doogald]

As for not needing the DRM removed, I definitely don't. I only did it because it makes making family movies and DVDs much easier and means I don't have to rebuy tracks on Amazon to get a good backing track for home movies and such.

The main reason that makes me consider it is that my 2002 Forester (which has a replacement audio system with no iPod integration) can play MP3 (or WMA, but whatever) data CDs, but not MP4s, and certainly not anything DRMed. So I can get these 128 kb songs with DRM replaced with 256 kb AACs, transcode them to MP3, and they will be copyable to data CDs for my car (the genius playlist feature is great for this, by the way) and still sound better, even with the transcode. (I think.)

(And I do not buy much; for me is is $8.40 so far - 1 album, a dozen songs - though obviously they are adding more every day, as last night it was $6.60.)

[crimsonsky]

You don't. Keep it DRM'ed. ;)

Putting my "Apple, Inc. Thought Predictor Hat" on, I think it's because:

A. The record labels don't want to give you another version of the track for free (they are scumbags, remember).

B. You are getting more functionality and better quality than you originally paid for.



I think that'll change, though. I think for now, they're pushing people to do it all, but eventually they'll just let you do it album by album (like they did with the original EMI changeover).



Well, A we take for granted :(, and B makes sense.

I'll wait until they allow you to do it with individual songs as I don't really want ALL of them converted due to cost. There are some songs listed however that I've somehow lost and this would get them back for me so those are the ones I'd buy (there are only 3, but I'd like them back).

[doogald]

I'll wait until they allow you to do it with individual songs as I don't really want ALL of them converted due to cost. There are some songs listed however that I've somehow lost and this would get them back for me so those are the ones I'd buy (there are only 3, but I'd like them back).

I wouldn't hold your breath. They have had the iTunes Plus upgrade feature in place since they announced Plus and the low cost deal (i.e., 30 cents vs. buying the track again full price) has always been all or nothing.