iTunes going DRM-free

DJ_Enki

Announced at Macworld today.

iTunes Plus is Apple's DRM-free encoding for the iTunes Store; music is encoded using the AAC format at 256Kbps. Beginning today, 8 million of the iTunes Store's 10 million songs will be offered without DRM; the entire catalog is expected to go DRM-free by the end of the first calendar quarter of 2009.

Discuss, batches.

Thermos

Will it still cost more than the DRM files, or is everything switching over?

I've always held onto the bottled water theory. The goal of the music vendors should be to make the process as convenient and inexpensive as possible. They are never going to win the battle against digital bootlegging.

DJ_Enki

Will it still cost more than the DRM files, or is everything switching over?

I've always held onto the bottled water theory. The goal of the music vendors should be to make the process as convenient and inexpensive as possible. They are never going to win the battle against digital bootlegging.

It looks like everything is switching over. They're redoing the pricing structure, too:

there will then be three pricing tiers: 99 cents, 69 cents, and $1.29. Schiller assured the crowd that more songs are going to be offered at 69 cents than at $1.29, however.

Bet that everybody's gonna price their shit at 69 cents.

DOR

UPGRADE ur mp3's for 30 cents per song.





This makes me laugh

Pistol_Pete

this is at least a year too late.
Amazon has been doing this for longer and for cheaper.
My business will be staying with Amazon and indie mp3 sellers like Other Music, Labcabin or straight from the label or band.

luck

Hey! Apple keeps their word.

twoply

this is at least a year too late.
Amazon has been doing this for longer and for cheaper.
My business will be staying with Amazon and indie mp3 sellers like Other Music, Labcabin or straight from the label or band.

I thought Amazon used some kind of DRM too, as the two albums I bought from them won't play on my ipod.

Young_Phonics

neveur mind

Jimster

Aren't they pretty low-res rips though? Last one I paid for, I would have preferred to rip myself. BTW I got some Sherlock Holmes radio show rips from about 6BC and they are in 24b... yes, Twenty-four. They sound like they are coming out of a radio at the end of a phone, recorded onto a wax drum. "Study in Scarlet" is 46 mins long and file is just 8MB long. I bet a meg of that is the photo of the Reichenbach Falls in the tag.

"Atmospheric" is what I call 'em.

ajraffles

I thought Amazon used some kind of DRM too, as the two albums I bought from them won't play on my ipod.

I believe this is due to the hardware configuration on the iPod more than anything else. I read that iPods are ready to ship from the factory able to play .mp3/.wma file formats but then Apple tinkers with 'em so they are only able to play .aac (Apple's proprietary format) instead.
Not sure how accurate this really is but some women in CA filed a suit against Apple a year or two ago alleging this, that and the 1/3.

Not sure in what file format Amazon "ships" its .mp3s and I don't feel like checking right now.

J

funkyexample

this is at least a year too late.
Amazon has been doing this for longer and for cheaper.
My business will be staying with Amazon and indie mp3 sellers like Other Music, Labcabin or straight from the label or band.

I thought Amazon used some kind of DRM too, as the two albums I bought from them won't play on my ipod.

I am happy to use them and never had problems uploading to the ipod...

deanosounds

I say it's about f'ing time! Who do these people think they are kdding by creating the IPod and then expecting people not to want to trade music with their friends. Admitting that people are doing this by releasing DRM free mp3s is a step towards a better future in the music industry. If you want to stop people from trading/sharing music then just put out records. Those are a b'tch to download.

Pistol_Pete

this is at least a year too late.
Amazon has been doing this for longer and for cheaper.
My business will be staying with Amazon and indie mp3 sellers like Other Music, Labcabin or straight from the label or band.

I thought Amazon used some kind of DRM too, as the two albums I bought from them won't play on my ipod.

weird. i've downloaded hundreds of tracks and have never had an issue with my itunes player, ipod or Microwave.

edit - the tracks have also almost always been 256kbps on Amazon too
I've Dj'd with em and they sound fine

white_tea

Aren't they pretty low-res rips though? Last one I paid for, I would have preferred to rip myself. BTW I got some Sherlock Holmes radio show rips from about 6BC and they are in 24b... yes, Twenty-four. They sound like they are coming out of a radio at the end of a phone, recorded onto a wax drum. "Study in Scarlet" is 46 mins long and file is just 8MB long. I bet a meg of that is the photo of the Reichenbach Falls in the tag.

"Atmospheric" is what I call 'em.

That's my main gripe. Seems like all of the music I have ever bought from iTunes is 128 kps. I don't pretend to notice a huge difference in sound quality on my computer set-up or still-factory iPod earbuds. But, if I am making a music purchase, I want it to be relatively permanent and don't feel confident going forward into the future with 128 kps -- maybe as a discount "play" copy. But for filing purposes? Never that.

RAW_HAMBURGER

fuuuuuuuuck itunes. cant play files in s.erato and they dont offer wavs. no thanks.