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- unloud, on 10/12/2007, -1/+54Key points:
* DRM Free Tracks will cost $1.29 and will be 256kbps AAC.
* DRMed tracks will stay $0.99 and 128kbps.
* You can upgrade songs to the DRM-Free format for $0.30.
* These songs will be available in May.
* There is currently no timeframe for the Beatles catalog.
* Steve Jobs: "our projection [is] for other labels coming on board as well."
* Audio Playback of the confrence: http://cache.cantos.com/mp3/pjx-d254/pjx-d254_MP3.mp3 - howismydriving, on 10/12/2007, -6/+58kroccamen: The DRM free cds are still 9.99 to download, the same as the DRM kind. If you could please point me in the direction of the store where I can buy a full CD for 9.99 the day it comes out, I would really appreciate it. I have never found this "fabled" store that has cds for 9.99 the day they come out. I hear about it all the time. Is there a secret hand shake to find out about it? Is there a password when you go to the checkout so they magically take of 20-80% of the CD price? I would really like to know.
- geminitojanus, on 10/12/2007, -5/+57256kbps AAC audio, full albums for the same price, upgrades for previous purchases at $0.30/song. I'm in love.
- colincornaby, on 10/12/2007, -4/+42AllOfMP3 also wasn't paying the artists at all and was mob run.
- lnknpk04, on 10/12/2007, -1/+37never thought i'd see the day. kudos steve
- Manhigh, on 10/12/2007, -2/+36For people, like me, who honestly don't care about the difference between 256 Kbps and lossless, this is great.
Also, its $0.30 more per track, but if you buy a whole album DRM-free it's still the standard price.
There are some people who are going to complain about this. If enough do, the RIAA will say "See, I told you so" and go back to the DRM hell we've been living in. - JustinPM, on 10/12/2007, -3/+33So would a chocolate Steve Jobs be sacreligious?
- colincornaby, on 10/12/2007, -0/+23I believe they added this feature in iTunes 1.0.
- noahhoward, on 10/12/2007, -2/+25Also consider this an experiment. The music lables consider us pirates and think if they pull protection they will lose sales. This has the potential to show them that fair-use and quality sells better than mistrust and crap.
- noahhoward, on 10/12/2007, -4/+23Can't please everyone I suppose.
You have your points, but one step at a time. It took a compromise to get this far, quit being so arrogant and demanding everything from businesses. Give it time and those prices will come back down. Once everything is DRM-less there isn't much of a reason to dangle a carrot infront of the lables. - MrObjectional, on 10/12/2007, -1/+19This is a great day for music lovers. Finally DRM free music from a major retailer!
So... will the complainers actually switch or keep pirating? - MadEnvoy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+15*****. Now I may have to install ITunes and buy an Ipod...
- teetow, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15256 kbps may not be lossless, but I challenge you to a double blind A/B test against FLAC any day. It's definitely good enough for 99.99% of the consumer market. Anyone who says otherwise is, in my view, just being an ass.
- ChumpChief, on 10/12/2007, -5/+19@howismydriving
You mean like Best Buy? Every cd is $9.99 on its release date. Check their website if you still don't believe it (Music -> New Releases). - geminitojanus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14It has had that feature since _before it was iTunes_. (SoundJam)
- Balanced, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14hgb5150, the article says that albums will remain $9.99, but at the higher quality option.
- chemicalpink, on 10/12/2007, -3/+16@ kroccamen
"considering that DRM is actually the cause of most of your technical support costs due to consumers being unable to use their legally purchased songs on an equal manner to CD Audio purchased content."
Actually, I used to work for iTunes Support, and very few (1 in 100, possibly) emails were because of that. - brstilson, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12Did you catch the part where they are also 256kbps files now? That's a 100% quality increase too. Funny how the Mac Haters conveniently leave out things like that so as not to disturb their rabid Apple-hating.
- colincornaby, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12"Nevertheless, I can't believe that people are cheering Apple for letting them sell to you the same thing twice!"
Huh? I can pay 30 cents per track to double the quality and remove the DRM. I don't have to pay for the entire track over again. - starbird, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12As some have pointed out, the whole album sale is the higher quality/DRM-free. I see it as win-win-win.
"DRM-free albums will be priced at the same price (but higher quality) as current, DRM-crippled albums."
So it's win-win-win, if they don't F it up. Record companies get more full album sales, people get higher quality, DRM free, and iTunes gets to work with ANY portable player. - brstilson, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11Apparently the anti-apple crowd are going to stick to the following argument points:
*Griping that Apple still sells DRM
*Complaining that the DRM-free files cost 0.30 more while completely ignoring the fact that they're higher quality as well. - musicbear, on 10/12/2007, -6/+17@chumpchief... Best Buy could be GIVING CD's away and I wouldn't support them... yikes!
- colincornaby, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11They will keep complaining until the songs are lossless and they are free. That's just the way they are. Feel free to ignore them. Even the FSF is happy with the move today:
http://defectivebydesign.org/blog/969 - pkulak, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10The first day this comes out I'm voting for it with my cash.
- THiNK, on 10/12/2007, -3/+13Updated:
slide text 1: Value for money Choice Ease of Use
slide text 2: digital consumers stated that they agreed fully or somewhat with the statement "it is important to be able to transfer files between devices"
slide text 3: DRM Free -- Superior sound quality
slide text 4: DRM free tracks at twice the sound quality or Standard sound quality tracks with DRM. DRM free complete albums at twice the sound quality. Ability to upgrade already purchased tracks and albums. DRM free music videos - balloot, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11I would love to take these "256 kbps is lossy wah wah wah" and see if they could actually tell the audible difference between that and a lossless format. I would be willing to be they couldn't. 99.99% of consumers would rather have the gain in download speed that comes with compression over the almost imperceptible to human ears higher quality of a lossless format. Deal with it.
- brstilson, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10Not only drm-free but DOUBLE the quality for only a 30% premium. It's a good deal no matter which way you look at it. Looks like all the Apple haters and John C. Dvorak were wrong again. Jobs put his money where his mouth is, he addressed the two major customer gripes about the iTMS and came up with a decent solution, there is no denying it now.
- mcstewart37, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9iTunes will probably handle these DRM-free songs in the way it handles explicit vs. clean tracks, with 2 tabs in the album view of the store. They can add a 3rd tab for "DRM-free".
- zioxide, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Good *****... Now I might actually start buying some of those iTunes Exclusives they sell.
- brstilson, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10and "your" reading skills need to be evaluated since you conveniently left out the part that they're double the bit rate as well.
- antoniojvr, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Aww. Did your mommy not hug you enough?
- dragongrrl, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9
remember this and be sure to buy some EMI product (even one song!) when this goes live in May.
there is no better way to drive out DRM than to support companies who take these steps. PLEASE SUPPORT EMI!
(ps -- i don't work for EMI or Apple, i just support the eradication of DRM thru means that will actually succeed). - BornGhost, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8I've never been big on iTunes, or iPods, or anything Apple for that matter. But this is honestly a very awesome step towards a world where people can get decent quality music for any mp3 player they want without having to pay an arm and a leg. If this continues to develop and include more of the major music labels, as well as many of the indie labels (that would make my life), I may very well start firing up iTunes when I want a CD.
Though I must say that having something a little more tangible is nice as well, so sometimes Amazon might come into play. Mmm, used CDs for $0.99. - djSyndrome, on 10/12/2007, -0/+81 album x $9.99 per = $9.99, whether you want it in 128 or 256 flavor.
The per-album pricing doesn't change and, since your example cites buying a CD, is perfectly applicable here. - coffeemonk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7I've previously refused to download audio, except for the rare free track offered directly from the artist's site, preferring instead to buy CDs and rip them for personal use.
Now that iTunes is offering DRM free music with no lock-in, the last hurdle to my actually signing up and purchasing music is falling away.
Now the record companies just need to put out good music. - xioner, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7I'll try to be helpful then:
Go to iTunes preferences. Under advanced importing you can change your settings in all sorts of ways. I go for 192 MP3, but some people go for lossless open codecs... pick your poison and be happy :-) - pkulak, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Oh look, you're trying to be funny. How cute.
- superkendall, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Money grab? Hardly. It's a carrot to draw the other music studios in to DRM free music, now they can have a tiny bit of that $2 price increase they wanted, but at the same time be forced into offering higher quality and no DRM. When they see it works they'll just drop the money loosing DRM option all over the place.
- Balanced, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6I'm guessing many will keep pirating. There's always some who will justify the behavior that is marginally more advantageous to themselves.
- djSyndrome, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6"Nothing compared to the 2.8 Mbps of my SACDs"
Congratulations, you officially have more money than brains. To say you've missed the point of this announcement would be a colossal understatement.
MP3s are for portable players and computer playback. No-one in their right mind that cares about audio quality is going to buy compressed music at *any* bitrate, and no-one who is looking for some music to play back on their morning run is going to pony up for an SACD player and the (somewhat hard-to-come-by) media to go along with it. - mywhitenoise, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Plenty of good music out there. Stop listening to mainstream ***** off the radio, and go find it.
- wonderchemist, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6@colincornaby: Some people will never be happy. Even if they tracks were lossless and free they find something else to complain about, like needed iTunes to access the store, or the format used, or how the artists don't get a fair cut... etc.
- Hilton, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6"Selling digital music DRM-free is the right step forward for the music industry," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO.
More: http://news.taume.com/Technology/Industry/EMI-Launches-DRM-free-Music-Downloads-832 - colincornaby, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Steve Jobs says you can set a preference that will automatically show just the DRM free version of a song if it's available.
- HappyScrappy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Apple doesn't have exclusive rights to the content (except perhaps a few mixes or whatever). If the labels feel they can do better on their own, they are free to do so.
Why the complaints? - acdcfanbill, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Holy jeez, I thought he was flipping us off using an EMI censor box for a second.
- HappyScrappy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6I think most people are buying from the iTMS because of convenience anyway.
You can often get the same albums for less using Amazon Marketplace or even at Target sometimes, but people still buy from iTMS.
If I could just think of a song I wanted and buy it right now from iTMS, I would probably pay the price they charge.
And now, with DRM-free content, maybe I will be able to. - alexmuller, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Seems to have happened then (quote from linked story):
8:21 Press release out: EMI Music launches DRM-free superior sound quality downloads across its entire digital repertoire.
Apple's iTunes store to be the first online music store to sell EMI's new downloads - NewChar, on 10/12/2007, -5/+11This is cool, but do we need 8 front page stories about the same thing?
- Balanced, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5ming0: So you're saying it's better for artists to get $0.00 from a sale as opposed to $0.05 (or even $0.01)?
If I'd ever been creative and capable enough to get a work out there that people were willing to buy, I'm sure I'd want to make at least a little off it in return for my time spent. Selling merchandise is just an extra on top of that. -
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