Show

iTunes going DRM free

Tom Warren
06 January 2009 - 17:59
89 Comments
Liked this (1)

Apple have just announced, during the MacWorld keynote, that 10 million songs on iTunes will become DRM free by the end of Q1 2009.

On the Apple iTunes store the text reads "This is a special offer to upgrade your entire music library of previously purchased songs, albums and music videos now available in iTunes plus. You will be charged $0.30 a song, 30% of the current album price and $0.60 a music video to upgrade. Just click buy now and new versions of all your music below will be downloaded in iTunes Plus. This page updates automatically as we add more music in iTunes Plus. Please check back often!"

Tracks should sell for 69¢, 99¢, and $1.29 -- depending on their demand.

In a separate announcement, iPhone users are now able to purchase music from the iTunes store via 3G. Previously users could only download music on a Wi-Fi network.


Image courtesy of Engadget

Tags:

Comments (89)

  1. Mercellus - 06 January 2009 - 18:01

    I can confirm this as well in my iTunes, location set to Canada. Ooh.

  2. KingyOwl - 06 January 2009 - 18:01

    This is all I wanted from MacWorld, I'll wait for the official announcement before getting too excited!

  3. abysal - 06 January 2009 - 18:04

    Wow what a deal!!! Pfff, I'll stick with my m4p's, no way I'm paying more money.

  4. +Jedimark - 06 January 2009 - 18:18

    It's £0.20 per song in the UK but only 25% of the album price - £0.40 for videos.

  5. XerXis - 06 January 2009 - 18:18

    so? they are charging again to delete the drm from a file you already bought? Man, why don't I think of such a get-rich-quick-schemes

  6. +shinji257 - 06 January 2009 - 18:26

    They have always done that. I think they are offering a discount because some people may be making a mass move from drm to non-drm music with itunes.

  7. +Bemani Dog - 06 January 2009 - 19:43

    It's in-line with the original upgrade fee to upgrade music to iTunes Plus. And you download a new file that's not only DRM-free but higher quality. DRM iTunes music is 128kbps. DRM-free iTunes music is 256kbps.

  8. Si_ - 06 January 2009 - 18:23

    This would make me actually start using iTunes. Will they be the same format or switch to MP3?

  9. +shinji257 - 06 January 2009 - 18:26

    From what I understand the non-drm format songs have actually been high quality than the drm ones for a while now. I think adaption of this setup has been slow until now and they wanted to see if everyone was willing to get on board. I think they got the thumbs up from all of their partners now otherwise they wouldn't of done this.

  10. KingyOwl - 06 January 2009 - 18:26

    They'll stay AAC, which is good because it's a better format than MP3, and practically everything plays it now, even Windows Media player 12 will.

  11. +Bemani Dog - 06 January 2009 - 19:21

    Still AAC, but DRM-free, so songs will play in any player that will play AAC, including Windows Media Player.

  12. torrentthief - 06 January 2009 - 18:25

    you have to re-download them AND pay again for them LOL. They should just release an app to remove the protection and leave you with an unprotected .aac or .mp3 file.

  13. Steven77 - 06 January 2009 - 19:59

    torrentthief said,
    you have to re-download them AND pay again for them LOL. They should just release an app to remove the protection and leave you with an unprotected .aac or .mp3 file.

    And someone will have that cracked and free for everyone in 10 minutes. Lol not gonna happen. They are not going to let a program that can show the hacking world how they put their DRM on mp3s into the wild.

  14. Simon - 07 January 2009 - 01:56

    I dunno about everyone else, but I paid the iTunes Plus upgrade for the increased bitrate. No DRM and no more vendor lock in as a result was just a bonus; I'm a Mac user so I'll stick with iTunes, and I'll have my iPhone for a while yet. Increased sound quality is the only real benefit for me.

  15. Julius Caro - 06 January 2009 - 18:32

    they caved in! now there's going to be 3 different song prices

  16. +Bemani Dog - 06 January 2009 - 19:38

    There hasn't been different song prices for over a year. Apple ended the practice of charging more for "iTunes Plus" not long after introducing it. Up to this point, if there was a DRM-free version of the song, you got that one automatically.

  17. D.E.V. - 06 January 2009 - 20:43

    Orlando Rays said,
    There hasn't been different song prices for over a year. Apple ended the practice of charging more for "iTunes Plus" not long after introducing it. Up to this point, if there was a DRM-free version of the song, you got that one automatically.

    Lol, He's not talking about "Plus"-prices...
    The prices for songs are now:$ .69, .99, 1.29

  18. bdsams - 06 January 2009 - 18:37

    so what happens to all of my DRM files from itunes?

  19. +Bemani Dog - 06 January 2009 - 19:26

    bdsams said,
    so what happens to all of my DRM files from itunes?

    They will continue to work for now. But I'm sure the day will come (probably not any time soon, but eventually) when Apple shuts down its DRM servers and they will become useless.

    At least Apple is giving its users the opportunity to replace their DRM files with DRM-free files first. And that's how I see it: They don't want to leave users in a lurch, but they need to pay for the bandwidth for re-downloading songs somehow.

  20. theyarecomingforyou - 07 January 2009 - 00:34

    So Apple can't handle the extra bandwidth for tiny MP3s but Valve allow you to redownload 10GB games like GTAIV as many times as you want? Please. This is just another money grab. It's great that they're going DRM-free but there's no denying that this is a terrible deal.

Please Log In or Register to post a comment.