No More DRM for Apple

[Timothy Huber]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2337929,00.asp' target='_blank'>http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,281...,2337929,00.asp</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"The "Big Four"-Universal Music Group, Sony BMG, Warner Music Group, and EMI-all agreed that, effective today, they no longer need to encumber their artists' iTunes offerings with DRM. This means that you can give a friend a song you bought on iTunes-and it will actually play on his or her iPod!"</em></p><p>Well I have to give Apple credit.&nbsp; At today's Macworld keynote, Apple announced that DRM would be removed from iTunes music files; effective immediately for 8 million files, with the rest to be DRM-free within a few months.&nbsp; This is huge for the digital music marketplace. It takes away most of Amazon's competitive advantage and means other stores like Zune Marketplace and Rhapsody will need to scramble to get DRM removed from their music files as well.&nbsp;</p><p>Correction: Rhapsody's single-track download store is already all-MP3 and Microsoft signed agreements with <a href="http://www.twice.com/article/CA6616365.html?industryid=23100" target="_blank">Sony BMG and UMG last November</a>. However, as of today, the Zune Marketplace still has a ways to go to get MP3s fully rolled out.</p>

[Lee Yuan Sheng]

An increase in song price to $1.29 (c'mon, likely the $0.69 songs are the ones most won't buy) and the fact my country still has no iTunes store...

Being in AAC instead of MP3 doesn't help, but that's probably a personal gripe of mine.

[doogald]

Being in AAC instead of MP3 doesn't help, but that's probably a personal gripe of mine.

Well, since there is no DRM, you can always transcode to MP3. I'd think 256 KB AAC transcoded to MP3 will sound better that the old 128 kb AACs.

[marlof]

The good thing is that in countries where an iTunes store exists, there is DRM free music to be bought now. And that's in a lot more countries than the country Amazon music is available to. As for the AAC format: these days more and more third party players play MP3, WMA and also AAC. I'd have loved to see the more standard MP3 format, but this is no deal breaker to me.

[priesmeyer]

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,281...,2337929,00.asp (http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2337929,00.asp)


It takes away most of Amazon's competitive advantage and means other stores like Zune Marketplace and Rhapsody will need to scramble to get DRM removed from their music files as well.


This is great news. The Zune Marketplace has already made great gains in making their content available as MP3. You can check with Jason Dunn on this but I think the estimate is that about 80% of the Marketplace is already DRM MP3.

There's no scrambling necessary.

[Timothy Huber]

This is great news. The Zune Marketplace has already made great gains in making their content available as MP3. You can check with Jason Dunn on this but I think the estimate is that about 80% of the Marketplace is already DRM MP3.

There's no scrambling necessary.

You are correct. I somehow missed the press release in November that Microsoft had signed agreements with Sony BMG and UMG. It refers to 90% of the marketplace being available in MP3 format, eventually.

However, there is still quite a bit of content that needs to be made available as MP3 on the Zune Marketplace. Compare this with iTunes: virtually everything I looked at this morning was already available without DRM. I'm a Zune user and think it's a better solution than the iPod (particularly with the ZunePass) but I have to give kudos to Apple for the way they've rolled this out.

[priesmeyer]

I do give them credit. I belive I finally have my mac-friend in agreement on how awesome our subscription service is and he has mentioned (finally!) that he wished iTunes had something similar.

And throw into the mix the 10 download credits a month and you've raised the bar a whole 'nuther level. I try and get the MP3s when I use my 10 credits, that's for sure.