iTunes Store goes DRM Free, offers over-the-air downloads
January 6th, 2009
Prince McLean, AppleInsider
While bowing to studio pressure to offer variable pricing on iTunes tracks, Apple has also finally convinced all the big labels to release their music as DRM-free ‘iTunes Plus’ tracks at the same 99 cents.
iTunes Store goes DRM Free, offers over-the-air downloads
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3 comments
two great things about this: (a) no longer any problem copying purchased songs between multiple computers – before, even when all were “authorized,” it was hard; (b) now i can stream my entire library to my iPhone or a friend’s computer anywhere, anytime with SimplifyMedia. the DRM blocked that before.
one bad thing about this: i’ll have to see what it costs to upgrade about 2000 songs!
There goes the argument about Apple keeping DRM for iPod/iTunes “lock in” like all the pundits have been claiming.
Apple made it quite well-known that they didn’t want to do variable pricing. The fact that they finally caved on this proves that the labels were withholding DRM-free music as “punishment” for the lack of variable pricing. So it was the labels that insisted on DRM, not Apple. And Apple obviously saw DRM-free as a bigger selling point than consistent prices, otherwise this wouldn’t have happened.
It will now be impossible for any other store *with* DRM to compete with iTunes. It looks like music DRM is officially over.
That’s one battle. Now we need to work on video…
Forgot to mention – the one big downside is the $0.30/song “upgrade” fee to remove DRM from songs you already own. True, you do get a higher-quality copy, but they should also give you the option to *just* remove the DRM, for free.
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