Apple CEO Steve Jobs is getting exactly what he asked for nearly a year ago: Industry movement away from DRM music. But the DRM freedom he wanted is looking more like DRM freedom from Apple. There has been a whole lot of shakin' going on the last two weeks with respect to DRM-free content: Warner made its library available to Amazon, as unprotected MP3s. Sony BMG announced plans to release its catalog DRM free. In second quarter, Napster will go back to its MP3 roots, with a library available in the unprotected format
While the DRM-free moves may be good for consumers, many labels' have another motivation: DRM freedom from Apple. The iTunes Music store is the biggest seller of DRM music, which should be good for labels wanting to curb piracy. But as iTunes/iPod dominance has increased, labels have found themselves in an increasing Apple choke hold.
View: The full story @ MS-Watch
While the DRM-free moves may be good for consumers, many labels' have another motivation: DRM freedom from Apple. The iTunes Music store is the biggest seller of DRM music, which should be good for labels wanting to curb piracy. But as iTunes/iPod dominance has increased, labels have found themselves in an increasing Apple choke hold.

Talk about catch 22. You do what is required in order to satisfy the recording industry, then you get accused by the recording industry of "holding them back" - i've never heard such nonsense in all my life!
No, people aren't even getting the choice thanks to the record companies.
The point is, when it is free from DRM, you can do what the hell you want with it so it is sort of irrelevant what format it is in - you can turn it into WMA, MP3, OGG or whatever other format you want!
The point is, when it is free from DRM, you can do what the hell you want with it so it is sort of irrelevant what format it is in - you can turn it into WMA, MP3, OGG or whatever other format you want!
Transcoding kills the sound quality. Why not just offer it in the most common format?
But with only 500,000 or their 6 million+ tracks available, they aren't really pushing to get it done...
I want unprotected AAC, but everyone is going with MP3 now because it's the most popular. Trouble is it's only the most popular because everyone supports it. This is a codec that was created in the 1980s, I really think it's overdue for being replaced. AAC is really nice, if the stores would just start offering it instead. I think another problem is that many people seem to have the idea that AAC is owned by Apple or something, which of course isn't true at all.
But with only 500,000 or their 6 million+ tracks available, they aren't really pushing to get it done...
Um... Apple has over 2 million of their tracks DRM-free, and that number's growing bigger every day.
Right, 'cause Apple doesn't have the world's largest DRM-free digital music library.
I thought Apple was being pretty liberal, what with having the most open DRM scheme there is, allowing people to put the songs on an unlimited number of iPods (all 100+ million of 'em), an unlimited number of computers, and an unlimited number of CDs. Can you even burn music from any other store to a CD?
Apple's DRM scheme is proprietary, yes, but the AAC format is not. AAC is an open standard. AAC files can be played on most modern media players, computers, some stereos, game systems, cell phones, etc.
What's the problem if Apple doesn't feel like buying licenses to every proprietary format out there? All it has to do is support the most popular formats, MP3 and AAC, along with some lossless ones, ALAC, WAV, AIFF, then throw in support for the DRM scheme the record companies made them implement and they're all set.
Last edited by thenewbf on 08 Jan 2008 - 15:50
Right, 'cause Apple doesn't have the world's largest DRM-free digital music library.
I thought Apple was being pretty liberal, what with having the most open DRM scheme there is, allowing people to put the songs on an unlimited number of iPods (all 100+ million of 'em), an unlimited number of computers, and an unlimited number of CDs. Can you even burn music from any other store to a CD?
Apple's DRM scheme is proprietary, yes, but the AAC format is not. AAC is an open standard. AAC files can be played on most modern media players, computers, some stereos, game systems, cell phones, etc.
What's the problem if Apple doesn't feel like buying licenses to every proprietary format out there? All it has to do is support the most popular formats, MP3 and AAC, along with some lossless ones, ALAC, WAV, AIFF, then throw in support for the DRM scheme the record companies made them implement and they're all set.
Yes, many (if not all) online music stores allow you to burn the music you purchased onto a CD. iTunes does not, however, have unlimited burning. Every album I've ever bought from there had a limit. (7, I think?)
Yes, many (if not all) online music stores allow you to burn the music you purchased onto a CD. iTunes does not, however, have unlimited burning. Every album I've ever bought from there had a limit. (7, I think?)
It has unlimited burning of the songs themselves. However, there's a limit to how many times you can burn the exact same playlist. Why you would need 7 exact copies of an album is beyond me, but if you really need more copies there's no DRM on the CD to stop you from putting the music CD in one disk drive, a blank CD in another, and making a copy of the CD. Otherwise you can just change the layout of the playlist and burn another CD with the same songs.
People did that already. This way at least the industry has a chance to sell music to people that hate DRM instead of having it all ripped off.
Or with their DRM-free music (over 2 million songs) you can play it on any player you want. You can also burn the tracks to a CD-RW and re-import them, as a way of getting the DRM off.
The DRM isn't anything to be worried about anyway lol it's piece of cake to break anyway i stripped it from them and re-encoded them from .m4a to mp3 and they are free
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