Apple finally buckles to the DRM-free pressure (but not ethics pressure)

[Richard]

Rumoured for the last few days it's finally here (http://www.neowin.net/news/main/09/01/06/itunes-going-drm-free). iTunes will now let you replace your purchased DRM-ladden songs with DRM-free versions. Yay! The catch? You have to pay 0.30 $US for each song you want to convert (more for movies - but less in the UK <---- this can only be a mistake :roll:).

While you are getting higher bitrate versions of your songs, there's an argument to be made here that the original DRM-ed versions' 128kbits was already far too low quality to begin with.

Now that there's no benefit in going DRM-ed I wonder how many years Apple will keep the DRM servers running.

[Sxotty]

That is actually pretty cool

I always avoided Itunes like the plague b/c of their DRM.

However it has some nifty things such as being able to download the same song over and over unlike Amazon.

That would be worth something to me as I would not have to worry about back ups and so forth for music anymore.

[Scott_Arm]

Am I right that it is now 69cents for DRM and 99cents for the DRM free?

[Skrying]

No, most of the songs are DRM free. They have three price tiers. 69 cents, 99 cents, and $1.29. Basically they're still a far worse choice then Amazon.

They're also charging people who want their DRM songs to be non-DRM, which is... well mean words.

[hmurchison]

No, most of the songs are DRM free. They have three price tiers. 69 cents, 99 cents, and $1.29. Basically they're still a far worse choice then Amazon.

They're also charging people who want their DRM songs to be non-DRM, which is... well mean words.

The primary appeal of Amazon was no DRM and slightly lower pricing on songs.

iTunes wins on overall content
Downloading ease
Podcasts
and IMO quality as 256Mb AAC is preferred over 256Mb MP3.

[Skrying]

Overall content you could argue about.
Downloading ease, uh you have to use iTunes...
Podcasts can be handled by other programs.
You can't tell the difference between the two and if you carried anything serious about quality you wouldn't use a download service, you'd buy the CD.

[hmurchison]

Overall content you could argue about.
Downloading ease, uh you have to use iTunes...
Podcasts can be handled by other programs.
You can't tell the difference between the two and if you carried anything serious about quality you wouldn't use a download service, you'd buy the CD.

Yup .. see track...listen to snippet ...click buy. The vast majority of people ranting about how great Songbird or Foobar or "insert the hail mary music player of choice here" are geeky. iTunes isn't perfect but if I had a granny that needed to be setup over the phone I wouldn't want to try another program.

I don't know of any other programs that have an easy "subscribe" button for podcasts. It's drop dead easy.

True...I buy the CD when I like more than 3 songs.

Here's a simple case of inertia. Apple has it ...and Amazon would have to give away beaucoup tracks for free to make a dent. Now with iPhone downloads over 3G it only gets worse for competitors.

I will say that that iTunes 9 better be a big azz rewrite. It's as cluttered as it can get and there's alot of other cruft.

Thank Gawd no more DRM on music. Now I can get that Sonos wireless system.

[Skrying]

Songbird is pretty horrible, it's a iTunes knock off. Foobar is great if you're willing to put the effort into it. iTunes is still horrible and not as easy to use as even WMP, and that's saying something. While it might have easy to click subscribe so do other products. As for the "3 songs" thing, if that's the case then the music you listen to is questionable.

[hmurchison]

As for the "3 songs" thing, if that's the case then the music you listen to is questionable.


I'm just picky

I'd love iTunes to become more lightweight. There's a time when I want to browse video and another time when I just want music.

The need a simple "mini me" that is only large enough to handle my music files and is very lightweight.

[Sonic]

I like iTunes because I have a Mac. No idea how you Windows users like it.

The news of them going DRM free is good to me because it means my friends no longer have to worryh about that. I'll stick with going to Amoeba Records or other music stores and buying the albums I want on vinyl and then ripping them to FLAC and then converting to MP3 or whatever other source.

[Richard]

I don't know of any other programs that have an easy "subscribe" button for podcasts. It's drop dead easy.

Zune does:

http://xor.planetaclix.pt/images/zune_podcasts.jpg

On a first approximation, I do agree with you that iTunes has better content/wider selection though.

[eastmen]

zune has some amazing featuers and the podcast support is better than itunes. Or at least itunes from last year when i bough a new zune. I love that on a podcast by podcast basis I can choose how many epsoides i can keep of it or if I want it to sync the newest podcasts or the from oldest to newest.

I also like their $15 a month subscription plan that lets you keep 5 for free.


As for ipod , i believe they are still putting your user name and ifromation in the file when you download it

[Sxotty]

As for ipod , i believe they are still putting your user name and ifromation in the file when you download it

Personally I think that is fine.