Apple finally removes DRM from iTunes
Apple Inc., the most popular source of music in the United States, stripped copy protection from all the songs in its iTunes music store and disclosed plans to charge as little as 69 cents a track. Under a variable pricing plan, songs will cost 69 cents, 99 cents, or $1.29 starting in April, with most albums going for $9.99, Apple marketing head Phil Schiller said yesterday at the Macworld conference in San Francisco. He spoke in place of chief executive Steve Jobs, who said Monday he’s undergoing treatment for a “hormone imbalance.” Apple had drawn criticism for using so-called digital rights management on most tracks, prompting Jobs two years ago to make a public plea to music labels to change their licensing terms.
The protections prevented customers from listening to music on unauthorized devices and limited the copies they could burn onto CDs. The company also faced competition from Amazon.com Inc., which charges as little as 79 cents a song - with no copy protection. While record labels liked having DRM, they also wanted variable prices, letting them charge more for popular songs, said Barry Jaruzelski, a partner at the consulting firm Booz & Co. in Florham Park, N.J. Until now, Apple sold most tracks for 99 cents each. Starting yesterday, about 8 million songs were being offered without copy-protection software as part of the iTunes Plus service, Apple said. By the end of March, the other 2 million songs in its catalog will be available without such software.
Source: Boston Globe
Finally came to their senses.
thank god… about time..
I'm very surprised apple did this. Especially as they seem to be getting more and more strict over the iPhone and record labels are 'cracking down' on file sharers.
Also there will be a lot of people who buy music on iTunes and have applications like soulseek and limewire, if you share a DRM'd track on one of these sites you're not going to get in trouble with record companies as the person who downloads it from you won't be able to use it, but with DRM-free tracks you're name, email address, and iTunes account details are still embedded in the tracks- this was always a worry for me with iTunes-plus tracks and I've had to go through and remove each album I bought with iTunes plus from my shared folder.
do you guys actually buy songs off of itunes? i though we were all pirates here…
im surprised itunes ever caught on
how do i transfare my itunes from my old pc to my new laptop anyone help please
I use to buy songs off itunes until I realized I was getting ripped off since I wasn't getting a lossless version of the song only a sh*tty compressed one.
what is the bitrate of a track from iTunes?
i think il set up an account to get those rare songs, cos im sick of limewire and their viruses
can i just purchase vouchers and get songs without having to give my creditcard details?
also is the RDM removed mp3 in the UK iTunes stores?
its 60 cents a track in NZ
just spent 37$ total upgrading 90% of my library
+ some tracks arent available in drm-free format yet
like my a-ha - Take Me On
dont think theyre upgrading my collection of free singles of the week….yet
they better not charge for that
60 cents to upgrade
$1.79 to buy
before anyone gets the wrong idea
its AAC 256kbit, not bad and a bit smaller in filesize compared to mp3 not much dif in audio quality
@1 What? It was the record companies that enforced the DRM, not Apple
@7 The bitrate is 256kbps AAC, and yes, you can just use vouchers without inputting your CC details
The audio quality is FAR superior to MP3.
A 128kbps AAC is roughly similar to a 192 kbps MP3 in terms of audio quality.
Also, certain frequencies are removed when encoded to MP3, which is not the case with AAC.
wow… this is a great news….
at last….
love apple
@ 7
LOL you use limewire. n00b.
So, does that mean there mp3 now?
It's about time someone cared about what the CUSTOMER wanted. If I pay for a track, then I should be able to listen to it in the car, on my comp, on my portable mp3 player, etc. Record Companies: STFU I already paid you!
@all
He guys, please buy apple products! Don't steal them!
Steve Jobs needs the money! He is ill and needs money for treatment!
Thx guys!
An apple fan!
@Applefan
I think Steve can pay his own medical bills with his few Billion dollars on his bankaccount..
Oh, wait $100,000 is worth like €1,- right?
NO AAC files!
iTunes AAC files, under examination, are the audio version of swiss cheese - full of sonic holes.
Unburnable, untradeable, and Apple is still forcing you to use what they want, not what the consumer wants.
nice move i just hope people buy more songs from this but im very skeptical that it will increase that much.
freebies will always find excuses.
Buying music online is stupid. With or without DRM.
Lol @ 4 I know right.
i dont see why every one worries about drm protection all you need is daniusofts digtal music converter i dl it off tpb and it removes all drm from any music and also can convert to any almost format and you can set quality to 320kb i use it to remove the drm from spiralfrogs downloads all the time p.s. they have some other software for movies but i have not tried
This has only happened because Apple (along with the rest of industry) know that after all the monitoring laws come out after March, it'll be EASY to track down who's dl'ing what and when…
THERE IS NO MORE NEED FOR DRM… they'll just look you up!!!
Horay, the last of the DRM music giants is vanquished!
So what does this mean for those of us who already own DRM music from iTunes?
Will those songs stop working after their DRM servers go offline like with MSN?
Will they un-encrypt songs you have already purchased?
Will they allow you to download a copy of that song without any DRM for free?
@26 dont worry about redownloading or all the other crap just do as i said earlier use daniusoft it takes about 2 minutes to remove drm from 20 tracks or a cd and thats also reencoding them at the highest bitrate 320 k here i will make it easy for u this is infection free its the retail with serial included i use it everyday after u enter the serial it still has the register tab i dont know why but its registered or it would only convert 30 secs of each song
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?yzkdmqlzl2m