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Apple and EMI offer DRM-less songs and videos on iTunes Store

Flag As Inappropriatehuangcjz huangcjz over 3 years ago about Apple

Apple and EMI will offer music tracks and videos without Digital Rights Management on the iTunes Store beginning in May 2007. This follows Steve Jobs’ call for DRM to be scrapped. The DRM-less music will also be twice the quality (256kbps) of the existing DRM-encumbered files (128kbps), and will cost £0.99/$1.29/€1.29 per track, as opposed to £0.79/$0.99/€0.99 per track for the DRM tracks, which will continue to be offered to give customers a choice between quality and freedom and price. Previously purchased tracks can be upgraded to the new DRM-less tracks for the difference in price (£0.20/$0.30/€0.30). This marks a major, revolutionary change in the music industry, with Apple and EMI pioneering the way. Source: http://daringfireball.net/2007/04/emi…

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Comments

Loren
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Where does the extra $0.30 go?

Loren over 3 years ago

rssaddict
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I suppose they could argue that the higher quality (256kbps) entails higher bandwidth and storage costs. Not sure if that holds up, but it’s possible.

rssaddict over 3 years ago

dsk
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Why doesn’t this apply to EMI? After all, it is making the songs available to Apple. Isn’t it “doing the right thing” rather than Apple? Apple is just the middle man making profit off of delivering these songs to consumers.

dsk over 3 years ago

DavidNeubert
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The current model of music distribution is still silly. The artists get too little. Middle-men (record companies) hiding under legal protections designed at old technology, provide little value added and take too much from consumers and artists.

Prices for music are still too high.

DavidNeubert over 3 years ago

prowsej
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So, a DRM-less Album would not cost $13!? The advantage of iTunes has been that $10 for an album is less than what it costs in a store. I can get Albums on sale at local stores for $13 with higher quality, album art, and a CD for a permanent backup. That’s a better value.

prowsej over 3 years ago

huangcjz
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Sorry, I forgot to put in the post that: “Albums will be DRM free, though they won’t charge a premium (hence, most will cost $9.99) and all of EMI’s music videos will drop the DRM but remain priced at $1.99.” – too late to edit it now. Source: http://www.tuaw.com/2007/04/02/emi-dr…

huangcjz over 3 years ago

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