RSSDRM-free Music Arrives on iTunes
By Ed Oswald | Published May 30, 2007, 12:35 PM
Apple made good on its promise to offer DRM-free tracks on Wednesday, launching iTunes Plus with AAC tracks from label EMI.
The tracks are encoded at 256kbps, which the Cupertino company claims is "virtually indistinguishable" from the original recording. The tracks cost $1.29, and those already owning the tracks can upgrade for 30 cents per song or $3.00 per album.
Apple is also offering cheaper versions of EMI tracks in 128kbps AAC with FairPlay DRM at the original price of 99 cents. Apple CEO Steve Jobs also said he expects more than half of Apple's catalog to be DRM-free by the end of the year.
Such a statement may lead some to believe that Apple is actively negotiating with several labels to urge them to follow EMI's lead in dropping DRM. Jobs has also recently spoke out against keeping DRM, saying it has failed to stop piracy.
"This is a tremendous milestone for digital music," said Eric Nicoli, CEO of EMI Group. "Consumers are going to love listening to higher quality iTunes Plus tracks from their favorite EMI artists with no usage restrictions."
With no DRM, Apple can put the squeeze on its small competitors even more, as it is be able to offer digital tracks for any player, even its competitors such as the Creative Zen Micro and Microsoft Zune.
Initial offerings from some of EMI's top acts include Coldplay, The Rolling Stones, Norah Jones, Frank Sinatra, Joss Stone, Pink Floyd, John Coltrane and more than a dozen of Paul McCartney's classic albums.
"No doubt lots of folks will be looking carefully to see how this goes over with the market," JupiterResearch senior analyst Michael Gartenberg said.
In an unrelated announcement, Apple also announced iTunes U, which is a dedicated area of free content from lectures and other educational material from top universities across the country.
Schools like Stanford have already been using iTunes to disseminate lecture material, however it was not open to the public.
Wow, this thread taught me one thing at least, that if I right click on an mp3 in my collection I can find (and change) all sorts of information on the track...neat!
In any case, DRM is so over as seier pointed out...plus now consumers have encrypted file-sharing options at their disposal (see http://www.gigatribe.com for example), so there's no preventing people from sharing tunes freely over the web.
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|so there's no preventing people from sharing tunes freely over the web.
Well, nothing but personal responsibility, respect for free-market, and respect for the artists.
But hey, who cares about any of that sh*t? Music *wants* to be free!
Whatever...
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|If you have an RCA audio jack (normal headphones/stereo) on the back of your computer and a line in port there's no way any DRM is going to keep you from owning your music.
Cheers,
Christian Blackburn
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|If my stuff is encoded in AAC, can't it be removed? Just clear the tag info? Or convert to MP3 at 320k and clear the MP3 tag info?
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|Damn, I'm good.
Taken from the WSJ D Confernce:
Q: Apple DRM is AAC -- transcoding, ripping, burning, etc. -- why not make Apple's DRM-free music MP3? [Applause]
Jobs: Let me point out a few things. All the MP3s you guys sell will play fine on iPods. We chose AAC because it's a much better encoder. We don't own it. Anyone can license it, the majority of players out there can play it, and most of the big players out there play AAC. [Umm, no, not actually true!] We're not trying to keep anyone out, we're just trying to use a superior audio technology. You can encode all your stuff in AAC as well, it'd be really easy...
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|It's been pointed out on slashdot, that apple is burying your account info (full username, and email address you use for the account) into the DRM free tracks.
Just an FYI.
http://yro.slashdot.org/...pl?sid=07/05/30/2014222
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|Why stick with AAC? Why not MP3? That would allow anybody with an 'MP3' player able to play the tracks.
Not that I would ever buy from iTunes. It still costs too much when I can get the CD new and/or used for cheaper at 'CD' quality sound and I'm able to convert it to any format I want (MP3, Ogg, Flac, AAC, WMA, etc.) and at any bitrate. Without having to install crappy software.
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|AAC is a lot better than MP3. It is its successor. AAC @ 256 is as near imperceptibly similar to CD quality as you'll likely ever need. If you're still buying CDs or using 16-bit/44.1 audio, you won't notice a difference.
Without regard to their software, I guarantee you no one could win the Pepsi challenge between AAC 256 and a 1411 wav with any consistency.
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|Oh, and AAC is NOT an Apple codec. It stands for Advanced Audio Codec, not anything Steve Jobs related. You could of course now convert that aac file down to mp3 if you needed to...
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|"Why stick with AAC; why not MP3?"
Why would a business completely switch to the use of another's proprietary software when they could milk the usages of their own--thus keeping the sharks and copyright bandits at bay?
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|Oh great, compress a compression.
That's going to end up just great, isn't it.
/sarcasm
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|Most current MP3 players already play AAC files anyways.
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|Well, not all. Mine doesn't witch is the iAudio X5, infact none of Cowon's MP3 players play AAC. Or any other ones I'd be interested in, like the SanDisk Sansa, Creative Zen or iRiver MP3 players. The only ones I know of that play AAC are crappy players; the iPod and Sony's PSP / MP3 players (or should I say Atrac3 players).
My point though is that if they did MP3 it would play in -any- MP3 player. At 256kbit/s I guess I'd rather have compatibility over slightly better quality. I guess too it boils down to that's why I like CD's better. It's more compatible, cheaper and even higher quality.
Edit:
Also according wikipedia.com the only AAC compatible MP3 players are the iPod, Zune, Sony's MP3 players and one version of the SanDisk Sansa (the e200R with a firmware update).
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|Actually AAC is owned by Fraunhofer, the same people that own MP3... not by Apple. Apple was just one of the first people to use it so that they could implament DRM.
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|Yeah, but that wasn't my point. It may sound better than MP3, but my point was that MP3 is more compatible. My MP3 player (Cowon's iAudio X5) isn't compatible with AAC, and any of the mp3 players that I would be interested in arn't either. And accourding to Wikipedia.com the only compatible MP3 players are iPod, Microsoft Zune, Sony's MP3 players and one version of the SanDisk Sansa with a firmware update.
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|Exactly
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|This makes sense, itunes drm only stopped the average consumer who is not exactly computer guru. Anyone who knows how to use google and has the desire could find those tools to remove the protection. I mean it was giving apple more headaches trying to keep it fixed than anything else. Trying to control cusomters when they are sold something will never work. This is a perfect example is freedom = customer loyalty, media attention and that will equal more sales.
Its about time that is all I have to say and itunes will probably make another billions songs now in a third of the time it took before.
The worst problem I seen was that stupid account authentication and being limited to 5 computers, ever had to reinstall your os because it crapped out? Oh yeah by the way that used up one computer, now you have 4. Do that a few times a year oooopse can't have access to your files anymore. Bummer.
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|Cranbers, you are sorely mistaken and misled regarding the intended purpose and design of Apple's iTunes store.
Apple's business hierarchy into the digitalized music market is a top-down model, a model that centers around the ease, and effortless functionality of the iTunes store in conjunction with the iPod player. It's the iTunes store, first, the iPod player, second; not the other way 'round.
In addition, if Jobs had his druthers, there would've never been a need for DRM encoded AAC files on iTunes. (You can send a "Thank You" card to the Big Four music distributors for your DRM-encoded files.) Ergo, the whole "[Apple is]trying to control customers" facade of your argument is a moot point.
Further, there's nothing stopping an "average" consumer from importing their non-DRM enabled tracks into iTunes or from uploading those non-DRM tracks onto their iPod players via iTunes.
Lastly, you are obviously one of those "average consumers" you so hastily mentioned before.
One does not need to be a "computer guru" or 'net savvy to figure out how to "remove" previously authorized computers from the alloted 5 fair uses...hell, iTunes' help files tell you how to do that.
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|BTW, if DRM is mentioned. Did I tell you that 455FE10422CA29C4933F95052B792AB2 = AACS processing key? No? So now you know!
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|Heh, it's on Digg again...
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