Moving slowly forward into a saner world

[andrewducker]

So, now that Apple is no longer selling DRM'd music, who _is_?

Comments

[kurosau.livejournal.com]

Bwuh? They abandoned DRM?

[drplokta]

Apple abandoned DRM for music a couple of years ago. They just convinced the remaining major record companies to abandon it.

[kurosau.livejournal.com]

Apparently I fell off the news bus somewhere back, a long time ago.

[bracknellexile.livejournal.com]

Ummm, it seems Apple is unless you're willing to pay.

[andrewducker]

They seem to be trying to interpret it in a negative way. Apple are going DRM-free on all of their tracks by the end of the quarter - and have most of them there already.

[bracknellexile.livejournal.com]

"it is offering 8 million of its 10 million songs in DRM-free iTunes Plus"

Assuming the article is just being negative and not actually wrong, then buying standard iTunes on the new 3-tier pricing will still be DRM'd - the iTunes Plus part presumably paying the record companies to take what they see as a risk and do the scary non-DRM thing.

It's an improvement yes, but not as straightforward as "Apple is DRM-free" it seems.

[andrewducker]

Aaaah, in which case _I'm_ misunderstanding.

*goes off to investigate further*

[bracknellexile.livejournal.com]

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but that's how the Reg article reads to me.

[andrewducker]

Nope, you seem to be right. The other stuff I skimmed seemed to be saying that they were going DRM-free for the whole store, but it seems that actually all of the music will be available DRM free - if you choose to pay extra for it.

[johncoxon.livejournal.com]

There are now three tiers of music pricing. 69¢, 99¢ and $1.29. The latter one will presumably be for newer music for which the record companies would like more money, the existing price will presumably be for non-DRM stuff, and the cheaper tier will be DRM'd music. This is all conjecture, but Apple said today that all of the music in the store would be available, free of DRM, by the end of Q1 2009 - if you don't want DRM, you don't have to have it anymore.

[cdave]

It does rather remove the argument that the music need to be DRMed, or us naughty consumers will pirate it willy nilly. And instead sends the message that DRM is annoying and you should be grateful to be able to pay to have it removed.