Starting today, Apple will offer 8 million of its 10 million songs under iTunes Plus.
The rumors are actually true. Imagine that? Apple has confirmed that they are going to drop DRM (digital rights management), as well as some of its iTunes prices.
Starting today, Universal Music Group, Sony BMG, Warner Music Group, EMI, and a slew of indie labels, will offer music under an umbrella called iTunes Plus. This is Apple’s DRM-free format, which promises 256 kbps AAC encoding.
If you want better quality on stuff you’ve already bought, they will upgrade it for 30 cents per song or 30 percent of the album price.
Also, once April rolls around, you might make back some of that coin, as well as save on the impulse audio buys. Instead of offering everything for 99 cents, iTunes will have three price points: 69 cents, 99 cents and $1.29. Hmmm… we have to wonder what will be $1.29. Will that be the good stuff? It’s more likely that it will be newer music, but Apple does assure that more selections will be priced at the lower end of the spectrum. Albums are expected to hover at the current $9.99 price.
According to the announcement, 8 million of the 10 million songs will be available DRM-free starting today, with the rest coming by the end of March.
Jason:
Amazon and Walmart got DRM free tracks before Apple because the Music industry wanted leverage to raise prices, and Apple wouldn’t budge off their $.99 a song, $9.99 an album. Apple even threatened to shut down iTunes entirely earlier in 2008 if the proposed cost increases went through. Since Apple was / is the number one music retailer in the world, they had some leverage to tell the music industry to bugger off.
Enter Amazon and Walmart’s online music stores. If the music industry could reduce iTunes’ importance in the market through DRM free tracks, Apple might be amendable to changing their cost structure to regain lost business…. fast forward to today.
The music industry tried to hardball Apple, and somehow Apple seems to have either changed their minds, or the music industries, as the pricing has changed, and they got the DRM free tracks.
I’m not sure if there is a real winner here, whether it’s the music industry, Apple, or the end consumer, but DRM free tracks are definately a good thing irrespective of who won.
That is only true if you live in the US, as you can’t buy from amazon.com if you don’t live in the USA…. or at least I haven’t ever figured out how to do it from Canada. Same goes for walmart’s music site.
While long overdue, it will be nice to be able to burn my purchased itunes music as mp3’s so I can use it in my car sans ipod.
This is too little to late. You can get DRM-free MP3s for cheaper at the Amazon MP3 store.
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Todd, I can only conclude that first comment was an unsolicited “attaboy”… 
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yea check http://www.tycromedia.com