iTMS – DRM?
Posted in Music — by Don on 04/05/07

I’m sure you have all seen this by now, right?

Not this time. Jobs backed up his rhetoric with action this week, announcing a ground-breaking deal with London-based EMI Group, one of the four large conglomerates that dominate the recording industry. Starting in May, Apple’s iTunes store will sell almost all of EMI’s music online without copy protection – if customers are willing to pay a 30 percent premium.

That’s right. No. DRM.

Besides the lack of DRM, you will also get a higher bit-rate track (256 instead of 128) as long as you don’t mind spending an extra $.30 per track.

I think per track it’s a pretty good deal if I am only buying 1 or 2. But, if the non-DRM price stays constant when buying an album, I’m not sure the iTMS convenience is worth an extra $3.

What do you think?

[ Jobs' EMI deal is a win for music industry, fans ] Baltimoresun.com

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(6) comments
  • http://guapacha.com paul

    I read somewhere that if you buy the whole album, there is no upcharge for the higher bit-rate.

    I don’t think its as cool as it sounds, though. First, the tracks are AAC and it isn’t yet the ubiquitous format available everywhere. Second, top down in my MINI the tracks might as well be 8-bit for all I can hear, and even at home I only play music through crappy PC speakers.

    I think its a good step forward, though.

  • db

    Most MP3 players support AAC (non-protected) now. Not all of them, but most.

    The cool part is that you will be able to burn disks (with better sound) as many times as you like. And, use the tracks on more than 5 ‘authorized’ machines. In fact, you’ll be able to use the tracks any place you like.

    And seriously man, you should look into upgrading your speakers. You can get better PC speakers cheap. Subwoofer and everything! ;)

  • http://www.jwiltshire.org Joshua

    I do think it’s cool, although to be honest, the only time the DRM has ever actually gotten in my way is if I want to drop a track into Garage Band, the DRM won’t let you. While I’m as anti-DRM as the next guy, I’ve never found FairPlay to be that invasive. Though I do remember that study that showed that DRM uses like 40 percent of your battery life taxing the CPU to check licenses or some such nonsense.

  • Martin

    Yeah, album prices stay the same. That’s the best part of this announcement.

    As for DRM, it’s great to see the music industry finally realize that restricted music isn’t good for consumers or musicians. Some musicians had already been questioning it — such as the composer / blogger Shelly Palmer, on Media 3.0: The “Other” Digital Rights Management

    It’s a relief that DRM will go away so quickly. I had foreseen a long, drawn-out demise.

    I’m happy to see it go.

    • Martin
  • http://guapacha.com paul

    Now someone needs to tell the RIAA the bad news!

    http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/

    btw I agree about the speakers, but I probably listen to music more in my car than on a PC (I listen off the iPod at work), should spend some sponds on upgrading the MINI stereo.

  • http://www.red-omega.com/blog John W

    I think it’s a great first step. And like josh I hate the idea of DRM but it’s not a major PITA for me. My one gripe is BPM analyzers can’t write the BPM to the file. so I can’t fathom why DRM’ed music isn’t packed to the gills with metadata. I am not space bar tapping hundreds of songs to manually do the BPM :)

    Good first steps. I’m really interested in seeing how the remaining big three react.

    Some one had a good point. most people don’t know the label their favorite artists are with. now people are going to seek out EMI artists and see if they like them.

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