Apple to iTunes partners: feel free to drop your DRM as well

According to notices that Apple has been purportedly been sending around to its various content partners for the iTunes store, it doesn't seem like EMI will be alone in its newfound DRM-free status for long. "Many of you have reached out to iTunes to find out how you can make your songs available higher quality and DRM-free. Starting next month, iTunes will begin offering higher-quality, DRM-free music and DRM-free music videos to all customers." While not terribly clear, this seems to imply that anyone who wants to -- and we know plenty of indie labels have expressed interest -- can opt for high-bitrate and DRM-free versions of their content when iTunes launches the option next month. We would hope that labels would also have the option to ban DRM altogether, even on 99 cent songs, but it seems unlikely at this point.

[Rohit Kapur @ Apr 27th 2007 1:19PM]

Business-minded or not, Steve Jobs is really helping the consumers by all this. I, for one, thank him.

Though I'm curious to see how anti-Apple fanboys will flame Jobs on this...

[Trent @ Apr 27th 2007 1:28PM]

Lets start in on the MPAA now. DRM is just as useless there too.

[Todd @ Apr 27th 2007 1:34PM]

Apple's plan on this doesn't make much sense to me. If the music companies are worried about piracy, wouldn't they prefer to offer the lower-quality music free of DRM, rather than higher-quality? I would pitch it as an option between (1) low bitrate, but DRM-free, songs for $0.99 each, or (2) high bitrate, but DRM-infested, songs for $0.99 (or $1.29 or whatever). It seems to me that if I were a music executive, I would be more comfortable knowing that low quality music is floating around the internet, rather than high quality music.

That said, I think Apple's plan is probably preferable to most consumers. Sadly, without the music industry's buy-in, the number of DRM-free offerings will not grow very quickly.

[Dixonij @ Apr 27th 2007 2:00PM]

I think you have it backwards Todd. The new, high bit rate songs are DRM free (and $1.29), while the current bitrate songs stay with DRM at their current price. That's according to the info in the first link in the blog.

[SHopkins @ Apr 27th 2007 2:03PM]

There's one problem w/ the low-quality files being DRM from a business model standpoint... more people are willing to pay more for DRM free tracks (regardless of quality) so as to be compatible with non-ipod media players... as opposed to the relative few who will pay more for higher-quality files. Now the business model becomes upcharge those who want DRM free files, and upcharge those who want higher bitrate... this way both groups pay the premium for what they want (and the two groups are likely exclusive from one-another for the most part).

[MrWhite @ Apr 27th 2007 2:02PM]

Baby steps are good.

[Moe Abe @ Apr 27th 2007 2:03PM]

This is just PR. The RIAA will not be releasing any more DRM any time soon.

Read below.
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/riaa/riaa-drm-is-pro+consumer-gizmodo-shut-up-idiots-255832.php

[MikeN @ Apr 27th 2007 2:53PM]

SHopkins, your point regarding cross-compatability between players brings to mind a question. I can only assume that the DRM-free music will still be offered in .m4a format, which unless I'm mistaken, is used pretty exclusively by Apple. What major media players on the market today offer support for m4a besides iPod? Will people really want to go through the trouble of converting file formats for purchased songs, and will doing so affect the quality? If it does, then we're back to square one.

[T-Will @ Apr 27th 2007 2:23PM]

I guess I still don't understand why anyone is willing to PAY A PREMIUM for music that they could get for CHEAPER with HIGHER SOUND quality on CD? Let alone receiving the album artwork, liner notes, and an archive copy that will never disappear if iTunes ever goes away or your PC crashes.

$1.29 x 12 song per album = $15.48
Album on CD = $9.99-$13.99 online

Paying $9.99 > Paying $15.48
Archive copy > No archive copy
Higher sound quality > Lower sound quality

All this said, removing the DRM is a step in the right direction, but I still plan to buy CD's for a long time to come.

[BigDMan96 @ Apr 27th 2007 2:36PM]

@T-Will

From what I read only the singles are jacked up in price - @ $1.29. The DRM free albums will still be $9.99.

I will look for the link that has this information.

[Milli Vanilli @ Apr 27th 2007 2:40PM]

The album prices ($9.99 I believe) will include all DRM free/high bitrate songs.

[johnzilla @ Apr 27th 2007 2:45PM]

@T-Will:

Your argument is only true if every song on a given CD is a song you're willing to pay for. Given today's music industry situation, this is rarely the case.

It is cheaper to buy 10 songs you love at 99 cents each ($9.90 total) online than it is to buy a CD with 9 crappy songs you don't like and one song you do.

As for the "no archive" argument, that's just silly...who wants the overhead of 500-1000 CDs, with jewel cases, when they can buy an external USB/FW hard drive for $50 and make a perfectly good archive copy of their tunes????

[sean @ Apr 27th 2007 2:28PM]

now take the "DRM" out of your ipod firmware

[Leonard Nimrod @ Apr 27th 2007 3:29PM]

There is no DRM in the iPod Firmware.

[T-Will @ Apr 27th 2007 2:53PM]

@BigDMan96/Milli Vanilli
Thanks for the clarification on the album prices, I didn't realize the high-quality non-DRM would still be $9.99 per album.

@johnzilla
I guess I'm sort of an album purist in that I think bands/singers create an album of their songs for a purpose, so each song is important to have even if they might not be hits. If we didn't have crappy songs, how would we know when an artist puts out good songs. ;-)

On the archive comment, I do backup music that I've ripped to an external drive, but I'm comforted by the fact that I also have a hard copy with the original CD's (I should probably box them up now that I don't use them). But even if music you've purchased is on a hard drive, there's still a chance of the HD failing. CD's should in theory never fail (at least for many many years or decades.

But like I said, for people who are going the online/digital music route, Apple is definitely leading the industry in the right direction.

[Antonio @ Apr 27th 2007 2:48PM]

iTunes partners to apple: No thanks!

[john @ Apr 27th 2007 3:24PM]

Are you kidding me? The indies have been screaming for this for a long time.

[Leonard Nimrod @ Apr 27th 2007 3:36PM]

Can't peopel do even the slightest amount of research. If you can reply to this site you can do a Google search.

Here is a partial list of devices that will play AAC (.m4a) files out of the box.
Microsoft Zune
SanDisk Sansa
Sony Ericsson phones
PalmOS
Nokia phones
BlackBerryMicrosoft Xbox 360

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Audio_Coding

[Leonard Nimrod @ Apr 27th 2007 3:29PM]

Of course the indies want this. They are small potatoes and need the coverage. If Apple did that then it wold make it harder for the major labels to follow suit. Since EMi--the 3rd largest--has stepped up, it will make the rest follow suit that much easier once they see EMI's ensuing sales increase on iTunes Store.

[MikeN @ Apr 27th 2007 3:54PM]

I COULD do research, but it's so much easier and less time consuming to let you do it for me, so thank you. By the way, a big name missing from your list is Creative. Also, I said MAJOR media players, so why did you list the Zune? Zing!

[T-Will @ Apr 27th 2007 6:22PM]

Will iPod play AAC (.m4a)? TIA! :-)

[Tim @ Apr 27th 2007 3:54PM]

Any player running Rockbox (http://www.rockbox.org/) will play AAC as well.

[Raetus @ Apr 27th 2007 4:05PM]

I am the co-owner of an indie record label and I will tell you that this is nothing short of awesome. We've been screaming for the longest time to allow higher fidelity songs and finally we'll have the option. Shoot, if someone would allow lossless formats, I'd put that out as well.

The DRM-free is equally as welcomed but not nearly as exciting. Emusic.com and many other sites already allow DRM-free tracks. There aren't nearly as many options when it comes to sites selling Hi-fi songs. This will be great for the consumers.

I'm going to go ahead and shamelessly promote one of my artists;
If you are an Ituner check out:

http://ax.phobos.apple.com.edgesuite.net/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/browserRedirect?url=itms%253A%252F%252Fax.phobos.apple.com.edgesuite.net%252FWebObjects%252FMZStore.woa%252Fwa%252FviewAlbum%253Fi%253D217520962%2526id%253D217520808%2526s%253D143441

As for Emusic:

http://www.emusic.com/album/11007/11007842.html

I personally am a big fan of Emusic, but they don't really have any major labels.

If you want a free trial of Emusic, sign up under my link.

http://www.anrdoezrs.net/click-2356689-10364977?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.emusic.com%2Fartist%2F11762%2F11762955.html&cjsku=11762955

It helps the label out and you can download our artists albums for free; if you don't like it you can cancel. I did the free trial but, I've kept it. I'm on there as "Raetus"; drop by the forums and say hey if you sign up. If you are looking for good indie music, they have a ton -- if you are looking to buy the new Paris Hilton album... stick with Itunes.

[Leonard Nimrod @ Apr 27th 2007 6:35PM]

I'm not sure what "TIA" means. Was that a joke?

In case it wasn't, iTunes and iPod can play AAC. Apple made AAC popular by using it as it's defacto codec. iTunes Store audio is encoding using a Protected-AAC format.

AAC offers better compression over the aging MP3 format, so songs using the same bitrate will decompress/play with higher quality. This is especially true for lower bitrate audio.

[T-Will @ Apr 27th 2007 6:39PM]

@Leonard Nimrod

Sry, yes it was a joke, you didn't list the iPod in your list of AAC compatible players.

TIA = Thanks In Advance

[Alex @ Apr 28th 2007 6:03AM]

I think, industry afraids that users will not buy music at all and will get back to free MP3 from filesharing networks.
Anyway, I always thought that selling music, even unprotected MP3's is same thing as selling snow in the winter.

[Andrew Baisden @ Apr 28th 2007 7:49AM]

"can opt for high-bitrate and DRM-free versions of their content when iTunes launches the option next month."
next month is wwdc ;)