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Topic: iTunes becoming completely DRM free (Read 8244 times) previous topic - next topic
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iTunes becoming completely DRM free

Great news.

I think Apple finally bucked under the pressure brought forth by, amongst others, my country (Norway) to make their store DRM free.  Either way, to me iTunes became a lot more interesting.

iTunes becoming completely DRM free

Reply #1 –
I had heard it was the record companies which were forcing iTunes to stay with DRM whilst offering the same tracks to say Amazon, to lessen their market grip, quite clever.

iTunes becoming completely DRM free

Reply #2 –
Now the only problem is that they will be using two different price points for songs: $0.69 and $1.29.  Those two price points, along with the standard $0.99 a song, will be set by the record companies.  Apple has fallen under the pressure of the record companies to offer higher prices.  This means that those future "hit" songs will be $1.29 each.  I believe Apple is sticking with the ~$9.99 per album price but the record companies are trying to go after people who purchase just the hit songs.  No longer will three songs cost $3, it will be more like $4 by the time taxes are included.

My only complaint is that the iTunes Store is using the AAC format.  I was fine with this until I purchased a Honda Civic which is only compatible with mp3 or WMA CDs, it will not read AAC CDs and it doesn't have a USB input.  The auxiliary input sounds terrible in that car so I really don't like plugging in my iPod and going that route.

This is a step in the right direction.  Not all songs are DRM-free now but Apple started off with 6 million of them.  All songs will be DRM-free by the end of the quarter.

Edit:  Damn Apple.  Why is it that they work hard to get the Britney Spears catalog (most of it) DRM-free and then not focus on actual groups/artists such as Lacuna Coil?  The majority of the people who buy pop albums such as Spears' more than likely don't care about going DRM-free and they didn't even realize that their previous iTunes Store purchases had DRM.  However, the people like me who actually want DRM-free music are going to have to wait a few months.

iTunes becoming completely DRM free

Reply #3 –
yeah it's certainly a step in the right direction, but they still have a ways to go before they get me as a customer.

iTunes becoming completely DRM free

Reply #4 –
What irks me about this is that I have a couple albums and a handful of tracks in my iTunes library that are DRM-protected, and Apple believes that $7.50 is a reasonable price for me to pay to upgrade these 25 protected tracks to iTunes Plus. I was hoping that Apple would be somewhat more interested in "giving me a break" and charging me what would be, in my opinion, a more reasonable price. Rather than charging me $.30 to upgrade individual tracks, I'd be much more comfortable paying $.10 per track.

Interestingly, if one happened to buy a given protected track at $.99 as recently as yesterday, and if that track is now sold at a $.69 price point as of today, that user will have to fork over a total of $1.29 to receive the same benefits of the iTunes Plus version that users today would be paying $.69 for.

My guess is that there are going to be a number of customers who've purchased large amounts of music via iTunes suddenly presented with an option to spend tens of hundreds of dollars on upgrades to their library. I suppose the big question on my mind is: how many are going to bite on that?

iTunes becoming completely DRM free

Reply #5 –
This is great for the future but I am surprised Apple is not giving a "grace period" to faithful customers who want to upgrade existing songs to DRM free 256. They are usually known for better customer service than that! I have around 300 128 kbps itunes and that is $100 to updrade!

Moving forward I can again consider iTunes an alternative to Amazon for music purchased (although I still mostly buy WAVs from beatport.com). I'm much more excited about the 256 kbps vs. 128 kbps than the DRM status. I cannot distinguish between AAC 256 and a WAV file/CD. It is 100% transparent to me. Good stuff!

iTunes becoming completely DRM free

Reply #6 –
Great! Now we only need the option to buy lossless files!

iTunes becoming completely DRM free

Reply #7 –
Quote from: kornchild2002 on
Edit:  Damn Apple.  Why is it that they work hard to get the Britney Spears catalog (most of it) DRM-free and then not focus on actual groups/artists such as Lacuna Coil?  The majority of the people who buy pop albums such as Spears' more than likely don't care about going DRM-free and they didn't even realize that their previous iTunes Store purchases had DRM.  However, the people like me who actually want DRM-free music are going to have to wait a few months.


lol "actual groups/artists"?
Maybe because Britney is bigger than Lacuna Coil, maybe distributor differences?

I think it maybe wrong to assume what people want by the music they listen to.

iTunes becoming completely DRM free

Reply #8 –
Quote from: sizetwo on
I think Apple finally bucked under the pressure brought forth by, amongst others, my country (Norway) to make their store DRM free.  Either way, to me iTunes became a lot more interesting.


http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10131761-93.html

Apple buckled under pressure, this is true.  The whole DRM-free disparity between Apple and Amazon (for example) was engineered by the labels to force Apple to allow tiered pricing.

Since I dislike the tactics of the RIAA (and those of their member Sony in particular) more than I dislike Apple, I'm a bit sad to see them having to give up ground to get DRM-free across their whole catalog. 

I hope that my tastes are enough removed from Top-40 "hits" that I will be buying mainly $0.69 and $0.99 songs.

EDIT
Adding some links for fun:
http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughtsonmusic/
http://news.cnet.com/Apples-Jobs-calls-for...l?tag=mncol;txt

iTunes becoming completely DRM free

Reply #9 –
Quote
What irks me about this is that I have a couple albums and a handful of tracks in my iTunes library that are DRM-protected, and Apple believes that $7.50 is a reasonable price...


Quote
I am surprised Apple is not giving a "grace period" to faithful customers who want to upgrade existing songs to DRM free 256. They are usually known for better customer service than that!
  I'm not so sure Apple is the one to blame...  Apple is just the middleman...  I suspect the labels are charging Apple for each "new" download.  AFAIK, the labels have never allowed removal of existing DRM.

At least some of the blame goes to the labels, and some of the blame goes to the customers too!  (I've never purchased any DRM'd music...  Only CDs and Amazon MP3s.)

iTunes becoming completely DRM free

Reply #10 –
Quote from: Ron Jones on
My guess is that there are going to be a number of customers who've purchased large amounts of music via iTunes suddenly presented with an option to spend tens of hundreds of dollars on upgrades to their library. I suppose the big question on my mind is: how many are going to bite on that?


I have purchased quite a bit from the iTunes Store over the years but it only has my recent purchases marked down for some reason (purchases that are 2 years old and newer).  Apple wants to charge me $61.44 to upgrade all of the various songs, albums, and music videos that I have purchased.  That is just too much since I have already spent at least $185 on that content.  I wouldn't mind upgrading a few albums to iTunes plus for $3 but Apple only gives us the "all or nothing" option.  iTunes is listing some singles that I downloaded and I don't want to upgrade those especially since I purchased the albums that contain those singles.  For example, I purchased the Nine Inch Nails single "Survivalism" since it was offered early on the iTunes Store and remained an exclusive for an amount of time.  I ended up buying the Year Zero album which has that song.  Why would I pay $0.30 to upgrade that song when I already have the album?  Apple should give users an option to upgrade only some content, I would be all in for that.  I would drop about $10 right now if I could upgrade these certain three albums but I can't.

Quote from: TREX6662k6 on
lol "actual groups/artists"?
Maybe because Britney is bigger than Lacuna Coil, maybe distributor differences?

I think it maybe wrong to assume what people want by the music they listen to.


Yes I know it is wrong to make assumptions but I have yet to see comments from a Miley Cirus/Britney Spears fan worrying about the quality of iTunes Store purchases.  It just irks me that Apple would work hard to offer DRM-free songs from more popular artists (where people are more likely to be oblivious to newer features) when people who listen to other music are actually more inclined to upgrade due to the increase in quality and lack of DRM.  My cousin listens to pop artists and she has no idea what bitrate her iTunes Store purchases are encoded at, if they have DRM, or anything like that.  She tried to copy one of her purchased songs to a friend's computer and none of them understood why it didn't work.  She is 15 years old and so are her friends.  I guess I am drawing assumptions from my personal observations.  My cousin could care less about her music being offered at 256kbps.  In fact, she would probably hate it as she would not be able to put as many songs on her 8GB iPod nano as she wanted to.

iTunes becoming completely DRM free

Reply #12 –
I only buy lossless because of several reasons, like from the british label "Chandos". And http downloads please, no need for crappy moster bloat clients. Basically I'm sceptical with Apple. I blame them to confuse my fellow citizens. People seem to think, any other portable player which is not an iPod is just a "cheap copy". Their marketing seems to work.

iTunes becoming completely DRM free

Reply #13 –
Quote from: ArtMustHurt on
Quote from: Schlunzen on
Great! Now we only need the option to buy lossless files!
yeah...but the majority are happy with their lossy music...so i doubt it will happen anytime soon
Agreed. I haven't heard a truly lossless CD for over 20 years. The loudness war sees to that. The tiny losses incurred by a good lossy encoding versus the enormous losses caused by the horrendous mangling the original content generally receives before it even gets to us via CD are miniscule to the point of insignificance IMHO.

Cheers, Slipstreem. 

iTunes becoming completely DRM free

Reply #14 –
Now as it is DRM-free, when will the store be iTunes-free?

iTunes becoming completely DRM free

Reply #15 –
Quote
Agreed. I haven't heard a truly lossless CD for over 20 years. The loudness war sees to that. The tiny losses incurred by a good lossy encoding versus the enormous losses caused by the horrendous mangling the original content generally receives before it even gets to us via CD are miniscule to the point of insignificance IMHO. smile.gif

Cheers, Slipstreem.


The more records I listen to the more I am starting to believe that too. 



Quote
Basically I'm sceptical with Apple. I blame them to confuse my fellow citizens. People seem to think, any other portable player which is not an iPod is just a "cheap copy". Their marketing seems to work.


It really has turned into that though hasn't it? 
budding I.T professional

iTunes becoming completely DRM free

Reply #16 –
Quote from: HotshotGG on
Quote
Agreed. I haven't heard a truly lossless CD for over 20 years. The loudness war sees to that. The tiny losses incurred by a good lossy encoding versus the enormous losses caused by the horrendous mangling the original content generally receives before it even gets to us via CD are miniscule to the point of insignificance IMHO. smile.gif

Cheers, Slipstreem.

The more records I listen to the more I am starting to believe that too. 
Well, in the classical genre some companies were/are explicitely stating to be conservative in mangling the dynamics. http://bis.se/ for example on many of their older CDs ("A BIS original dynamics recording"), don't know about the current ones.. OTOH I think you can hardly do classical without tuning the sources.