Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Apple Launches iTunes Plus: DRM Free Music Finally Here
Posted by Jason Dunn in "NEWS" @ 07:07 AM
"Apple today launched iTunes Plus—DRM-free music tracks featuring high quality 256 kbps AAC encoding for audio quality virtually indistinguishable from the original recordings—for just $1.29 per song. iTunes Plus is launching with EMI’s digital catalog of outstanding recordings, including singles and albums from 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 available on iTunes for the first time. iTunes will continue to offer its entire catalog, currently over five million songs, in the same versions as today—128 kbps AAC encoding with DRM—at the same price of 99 cents per song, alongside the higher quality iTunes Plus versions when available. In addition, iTunes customers can now easily upgrade their library of previously purchased EMI content to iTunes Plus tracks for just 30 cents a song and $3.00 for most albums."
[image courtesy of Engadget]
Here, finally, we have the official launch of DRM-free tracks from iTunes. I'm a little surprised they gave it the name of "iTunes Plus" - that might create some consumer confusion. I'll also be curious to see how many people will upgrade their music to the DRM-free versions - at 30 cents a pop, or $3 for an album, consumers with large iTunes collections might not be willing to do that - especially if they're happy iPod owners and don't see any value in doing so. Still, I've got to hand it to Apple: they're giving people a choice, which is more than that needed to do. Are you going to upgrade your iTunes library to "iTunes Plus" tracks? How much is that going to cost you?
[image courtesy of Engadget]
Here, finally, we have the official launch of DRM-free tracks from iTunes. I'm a little surprised they gave it the name of "iTunes Plus" - that might create some consumer confusion. I'll also be curious to see how many people will upgrade their music to the DRM-free versions - at 30 cents a pop, or $3 for an album, consumers with large iTunes collections might not be willing to do that - especially if they're happy iPod owners and don't see any value in doing so. Still, I've got to hand it to Apple: they're giving people a choice, which is more than that needed to do. Are you going to upgrade your iTunes library to "iTunes Plus" tracks? How much is that going to cost you?
