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Is iTunes Plus gone? iTunes 11 offers DRM-free audio re-downloads
I am not now, nor have I ever been an iTunes Match customer. But last night, I was able to download DRM-free copies of music I purchased from iTunes in the days before iTunes Plus via iTunes 11. I also determined that some of my iTunes content that I thought was securely tucked away on my hard drive had in fact made a retreat into the cloud. Update: A search of my iTunes library shows the following trick worked for 290 of my m4p tracks, about half or maybe a bit more. How iTunes 11 handles cloud re-downloads Last night, I was updating several applications and, to pass the time, I decided to watch one of my iTunes purchased movies. Only one problem: they had apparently disappeared from my computer. Everything except my self-recorded "Mockingbird Lane" (fabulous pilot!) had disappeared. This made me cranky. A quick scan of my Time Machine backups revealed that the last time those files were on my system was in July 2012. My 2012-07-17-011958 backup had all my movies. My 2012-07-24-001934 did not. Curious. So I stopped my app updates (there were dozens, including a rather obnoxious 1.3 GB TomTom update), quit and restarted iTunes. I discovered that although my movie files were gone, their iTunes listings had reappeared. Stopping the app updates allowed iTunes enough breathing space to call back home and provide a list of streamable, downloadable items such as this one: The reason I hadn't seen this was that iTunes couldn't get enough bandwidth to grab the listings while I was doing my massive download updates. See the cloud-download icon? My movies were now in the cloud. So my purchases were still there, just off my computer. Honestly, I'm not happy about this -- I don't like data disappearing without my consent. (Imagine if I had discovered this while on an airplane.) But the bigger revelation was yet to come. The case of the disappearing iTunes Plus Listed in my Songs section were a badjillion purchased items (mostly free songs of the week) that I had long since deleted from my computer. Much like the old 256 kbps purchases which you could re-download, I was being offered to opportunity to re-download my ancient m4p items. So I tried it and sure enough, it worked. More interestingly, the copy that downloaded was an m4a file, not an m4p file. Specifically, it was no longer DRM encrypted. I decided to manually delete some of my m4p files from iTunes (not from my computer) and see if the trick worked for them too. It did. My Little Mermaid album folder now contained two files for each track. The new downloads all were unprotected files. I did not purchase iTunes Plus for these items, I am not a member of iTunes Match and I did not do anything special. This did not, however, work universally. Apparently iTunes doesn't like Swedes Norwegians. (Update: A little more than half of my m4p tracks converted successfully, 290 tracks in total.) This is the first I have heard about re-downloads being available as a courtesy for non-256K tracks, although I probably missed the news about it at some point. Meanwhile last week, TUAW reader Christopher Chapin noticed that after iTunes 11 debuted, the link from the iTunes Store to iTunes Plus was gone. A subsequent check of an iTunes Plus support document showed that the direct link was dead. Is iTunes Plus finally dead? It's looking that way. How to replace DRM tracks with DRM-free ones A final tip: To find all the protected media in your iTunes library, you'll want to add the Kind label to your Songs listings. Right-click the columns header and enable Kind, then use that to sort your music. All your protected tracks will group together. Sign into iTunes, delete the songs (but not the files), and hopefully download them again via iCloud. Good luck.
Who owns your iTunes? Bruce Willis probably doesn't care (Updated)
Bruce Willis versus Apple -- this time, it's personal. Is he Moonlighting as a legal Hudson Hawk who refuses to let his digital media rights Die Hard? (I'm so sorry about that.) Update: Noted by TechCrunch, Willis's wife Emma Heming-Willis has now said on Twitter that the report of his potential legal action vs. Apple is "not a true story." As we mentioned, when it comes to the British tabloids and celebrity coverage... well, let's just say I had a bit of a Sixth Sense about this tale. (Really, really sorry.) Let's frame this story by noting that it's a holiday weekend in the US, and perhaps the relative calm before the news storm of a major political convention and some anticipated Apple product announcements is giving tech and legal reporters some coverage latitude. Also, the sources for the Willis story (UK tabloids The Daily Mail & The Sun) are not always 100% accurate when it comes to celebrity coverage, or indeed about anything else. Nevertheless, the issues raised are current and challenging. Willis is supposedly considering legal action, among other remedies, to ensure that he can include his large iTunes media collection among the assets of his estate when he dies. His three daughters (Rumer, Scout and Tallulah), the beneficiaries of the estate, would then have full rights to thousands of songs, movies and more. Unfortunately, under the current T&C covering iTunes purchases, it's not clear whether that's allowed. When you buy a song from iTunes, the music comes along with certain conditions for its use. (Technically you are in fact purchasing the song, or "iTunes Products" as the terms have it, rather than licensing it; both Venture Beat and The Next Web are citing a part of the T&C discussing a "nontransferable license," but that covers iOS or Mac apps, not music.) Specifically, you are allowed to listen to the song for your own personal, non-commercial use; you are also limited in the number of devices you can use your music with (up to five), among other constraints. The key here is that the devices have to be under your personal control; otherwise you'd be permitted to put songs on your friends' iPods, which is contrary to the rules. When Willis passes on, hopefully many years hence, obviously he can no longer "personally control" said devices. While the current T&C doesn't say anything about transferring music, Apple support will not help users merge, split or transfer iTunes accounts. In theory, then, his estate would be stuck. Similar issues are already cropping up in divorce cases, where ownership of the digital assets has to be considered in settlement discussions. [Also worth noting: while Apple is far from alone in having digital property challenges, the company is restrained in how much latitude it can give end users because it in turn has rights agreements with the record labels, movie studios etc. Even if Apple wanted to give free and easy transfers to account holders, the original content owners might balk. --MR] In practice, though, there are some workarounds to these challenges. One would be to change the account/payment information on Willis's iTunes to give control of the digital assets to a trust in his daughters' names, although that's a lot of aggravation for the payoff -- he would still need a way to share the tunes between his kids (multiple iPods engraved with Dad's bald, menacing scowl?) without running afoul of the iTunes rules. The question of transferability is one that really hasn't been settled yet for Apple's digital products, or for that matter on Amazon or Barnes & Noble's e-book stores. The other, simpler approach Willis could take is iTunes Plus. Apple's DRM-free version of the iTunes music library is covered by terms that are noticeably looser and more flexible than the traditional iTunes library. The CYA sentence in question is "You may copy, store, and burn iTunes Plus Products as reasonably necessary for personal, noncommercial use." Depending on whether "personal use" can include "personally passing on my assets to my heirs," a library full of iTunes Plus tracks could be handed off alongside the family silver and the rights to Quentin Tarantino's career. Whether or not Willis pursues a course through the courts, the issue of digital asset ownership is one that isn't going away anytime soon. Thanks Michael G. [Photo by Gage Skidmore, Wikimedia Commons]
iTunes pricing and DRM schemes updated for 2009
Phil Schiller today outlined Apple's new pricing scheme for iTunes music, and announced additional music that will be available DRM-free. In April, depending on the label, songs will be available at three price points: 69 cents, 99 cents, and $1.29. Apple says many more songs will be priced at 69 cents than $1.29, but new releases will likely cost more. Albums will mostly remain at the $9.99 price point. 69 cent songs will have greater restrictions on how they can be used: For each song, users will only be able to download it to one Mac, burn it to one CD, and copy it to one iPod. Turns out this was idle speculation from one of our colleagues, and not part of the changes today. Sorry about that. -- RP More songs will be also be made available as part of the iTunes Plus program, which features higher-quality, DRM-free music files. Eight million (of 10 million total) songs will be available through iTunes Plus today, and every track will be available DRM-free by the end of March. (Thanks, Chris!) iPhone users that connect to the Internet via 3G also got good news: They will be able to connect to the iTunes store via both WiFi and 3G starting today. Update: Others with first-generation iPhones here in the Media Center report that the iTunes store appears to work over EDGE, too, but weren't able to test it. As many expected, Schiller announced new sales figures for the iTunes store, saying Apple has 75 million accounts, and is now the number-one music retailer in the United States.
iTunes going primarily DRM free? (Update: yes, it is! 3G downloads, too)
While Phil hasn't mentioned it in the keynote just yet, it looks like iTunes might be getting a big catalog overhaul, with most major labels finally offering up DRM free tunes. Our tipster mentioned DRM free goodies from Virgin, Sony BMG, American Recording and more (iTunes Plus has mainly been limited to EMI and some independents so far), and that most previously purchased songs are now upgradable for the same old price of $0.30 a song. We're still digging around on the iTunes Store trying to figure this out -- it's offering to upgrade our library, but the transaction won't go through yet -- and we'll obviously know more if it gets a keynote mention. Let us know if you have any luck picking up those non-EMI MP3s on your end.[Thanks, Greg]Update: As you've you probably noticed in the liveblog, Apple just made this very much official, and announced that some 8 million songs from all the major labels will indeed be DRM free, with a full ten million planned by the end of the quarter. As if that wasn't enough, it's also announced a new pricing structure for tracks, including a new $0.69 tier and a $1.29 one, which music companies will apparently be able to use at their own discretion. And, to keep things really spicy, the company has also announced that music store downloads are now finally available over 3G, and at the same price and the same quality.
Remix Radiohead in iTunes
A couple of years ago, Trent Reznor released fully editable GarageBand versions of a few Nine Inch Nails songs. Others have followed suit (like Burger King), and now Radiohead joins their number.They've made all five tracks (or "stems") of the song "Nude" available in iTunes for $0.99 each [iTunes link]. The tracks are in DRM-free iTunes Plus format, so you can pretty much manipulate them however you'd like.Purchase all five before the end of this week and receive an access code for the full GarageBand file. Once you've finished your remix, you can upload it here. It definitely sounds like fun, especially for Radiohead fans (like me).
Creative prepping 4GB Zen Stone Plus?
So it looks like Creative will be continuing to attack Apple on the features front, with Crave UK reporting that the Singaporean manufacturer is poised to release an updated version of its diminutive, Shuffle-esque Zen Stone Plus -- packing in a hefty 4GB of flash memory, no less. Besides the capacity bump, the unannounced upgrade is also said to boost battery life to a more respectable 12 hours and add support for unprotected AAC files, clearly a move designed to sway fans of the iTunes Plus DRM-free music selection. Being a rumor and all, we don't even have a clue as to when you can expect to see the latest Stone on store shelves, so keep your eyes peeled. Update: Now Crave is reporting that an 8GB Stone Plus is also forthcoming. Stay tuned throughout the day as this supposed capacity continues to increase.[Thanks, Daniel M.]
iTunes Plus price drop, 'Today or tomorrow'
Ars Technica first reported yesterday that Apple was ready to lower the price of iTunes Plus tracks from $1.29 for the DRM free music to $.99 which puts it in line with the pricing on the DRM laden tracks in the rest of the iTunes Store. Steve Jobs, and you can't get a better source than that, has confirmed with the Wall Street Journal that this will be happening either today or tomorrow.Most people credit the strong showing that Amazon MP3 has made to this move. Whatever the cause I'm just happy to be able to purchase DRM free music at a lower price.
Apple officially cuts DRM-free track prices to $.99
In a move which can only be described as unsurprising, Apple has officially announced plans to lower the price of its iTunes Plus offerings (AKA iTunes sans-DRM) to $.99, instead of the higher-priced premium of $1.29. Old Jobsy claims that the decision was made due to the popularity of the unlocked, higher quality tracks with customers, saying, "It's been very popular with our customers, and we're making it even more affordable." Of course, it also seems likely that iTunes and Apple are feeling the burn from the new wave of DRM-free music providers, like Amazon, and the persistent rumors / news of former playmate Universal amassing an "anti-iTunes" which could seriously compete with the Cupertino monolith's business. Sure, it's the third-largest retailer of music in the US, but there's always someone creeping up from behind -- just ask Irv Gotti.Update: Apple press release makes it really, really, super duper official.
Apple lowering DRM-free tracks to $0.99 -- embracing Indies?
The rumors are rampant this morning about an imminent, cross-the-board iTunes Plus (DRM-free) price cut. Previously, all Plus tracks had been listed at $1.29, not the usual $0.99 for DRM "protected" media. That premium delivers 256kbps quality tracks for you to play on any device supporting AAC playback. Of these tracks, nearly all were from EMI or just a handful of Indies. Now, presumably in response to launch of Amazon's MP3 store which prices DRM-free tracks at $0.89 or $0.99, Apple appears ready to cut the price of all Plus tracks to $0.99. As the rumor goes, we should see more Indie's shed their DRM sometime this week, if not today.[Via MacRumors]
John Lennon on iTunes
Imagine all the people... downloading John Lennon's songs. It isn't hard to do-- John Lennon's music is now available on the iTunes store as of last night. Right around 3AM, reader Ricky (thanks!) saw the graphic above pop onto the store, and noticed that Working Class Hero, among other albums, had arrived, and then disappeared about half an hour later. He speculated that they were working on a full release today.And he was exactly right-- Apple has announced that sixteen of Lennon's solo works are now for sale on the iTS, including the "digital debuts" of the Lennon Legend and Acoustic collections. Additionally, for the next 30 days, six of the albums will include exclusive video content-- Working Class Hero looks like it has a "Give Peace a Chance" video on it, and Imagine includes a video for the classic title track. And all of the albums are available not only regular price ($.99 a song), but also at iTunes Plus prices, which means $1.29 a song, but completely DRM free.First Paul McCartney, now Lennon, and the Beatles has to be just around the corner. Power to the people, right on!Thanks, Ricky and Zack!
Universal to sell DRM free songs, but not on iTunes
It is safe to say that most folks aren't big fans of DRM, though Apple's flavor of DRM (FairPlay) is flexible enough that most will never run afoul of it. You might remember Steve's letter to the music industry in which he extolled the virtues of DRM free music. EMI has been the only major record label to adopt this DRM free stance, and much of its catalog is available via iTunes Plus for $1.29 a song (you can still get the DRMed versions for $.99). EMI is about to have some company in the DRM free music biz, pretty soon.The New York Times is reporting that the Universal Music Group is going to be selling part of its catalog sans DRM for the next few months to gauge consumer interest. This is great, but the only catch is that these DRM free songs won't be available via iTunes. Universal, in an effort to lessen Apple's dominance of the digital music market, will be offering up the DRM free music via Amazon, Google, RealNetworks, and Wal-Mart for $.99 a song (a price many accredit Apple to pioneering).You might recall that Universal recently decided not to renew their contract with Apple to sell music in iTunes, and switched their commitment to a month by month basis. What does all this mean? I am betting that this experiment will succeed, and that Universal will reverse their decision and sell DRM free tracks via iTunes, why not sell your wares on the top online music store?
EMI: Initial DRM-free sales results "good"
Ok Fair Use advocates, listen up. EMI senior VP Lauren Berkowitz has just given her initial sales report following their much ballyhooed DRM-free launch on iTunes Plus last month. The results? Well, "good" is the word she used to summarize sales. During the first week of availability, sales of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon were up 350 percent. Even now, after all the initial excitement, sales remain 272 percent higher. To a lesser degree, other EMI artists are also riding the DRM-free, download bump; even while their respective CD sales have tailed off. For example, downloads for Norah Jones' Come Away with Me are up some 24 percent while CD sales have dropped 33 percent. Still, the DRM-free tracks were launched only three weeks ago which is far too early for any kind of proper trend analysis. We also don't have any correlating data to demonstrate an increase (or decrease) in piracy -- something the record labels will likely weigh in equal importance. Things do look promising though, eh?[Via Ars Technica]
EMI sees boost in sales thanks to iTunes Plus
Macworld UK reports that EMI is seeing an uptick in purchases from iTunes since iTunes Plus was introduced. For instance, sales of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon [iTunes Link] have increased 350% (we all know hippies don't like DRM. I kid, I kid).The real question is whether the uptick in purchases can be attributed to the lack of DRM or the higher bit rate encoding? Either way, this is good news for those of us who welcome a world without DRM.
Get rid of iTunes Plus "watermarking"
Our own Erica was one of the first to discover that personal information is encoded in DRM-free iTunes Plus files. If you want to remove that "watermarking," Playlist Magazine has a solution: TUAW favorite audio editor Fission ($32) from Rogue Amoeba "can strip out the identifying information in an iTunes Plus track without changing the file's audio." Basically, you just open the file then resave it as AAC (Original Format, Lossless) and the non-original format identifying information is not saved. Unfortunately, you have to do this for each file individually, but if you don't want your name and Apple ID in the file, this looks like it'll work (though I haven't tried it myself).
Workaround for iTunes Plus files on TiVo
I have a TiVo that's on my wireless network. Occasionally, I use it to listen to the music that lives on my iMac as I cook or what have you. It's known that music purchased from the iTunes store won't play via TiVo, and I was hoping that the DRM-free iTunes Plus upgrade would change that.Wrong.TiVo still sees them as "format Purchased AAC audio file not mp3 or convertible to mp3." Luckily, The Apple Blog has a workaround. Simply convert your iTunes Plus tracks to either AAC or Mp3, and the file type in iTunes will be changed to "AAC audio file" or "MPEG audio file" respectively. TiVo likes that.Yes, this will result in quality loss, but my television speakers hardly do the music justice in the first place, so who cares?
Will iTunes Plus also allow you to upgrade videos?
Right now, iTunes Plus allows you to upgrade tracks and music videos. So what about TV shows or movies? If Apple started offering High Definition versions, would you upgrade your existing library? After all, it's got to look good on your new Apple TV, right? Or do you think you're already paying a premium price for iTunes content? And you're not even getting the director's commentaries! Let us know what you think of a possible iTunes Plus Video offering in the following poll and in the comments. Would you pay more for iTunes Video Plus? If it's not too much. Say a buck more for movies. Not sure. No way. I'm already paying as much as a DVD and I don't even get extras! Other (Let us know in the comments) pollcode.com free polls
iTunes vs iTunes Plus: an audible difference?
With the arrival of iTunes Plus and DRM-free 256kbs AAC files Maximum PC decided to put the higher encoding rate to the test. Running a double-blind experiment with ten subjects and both Apple's included earbuds as well as high-end Shure SE420 canalphones, the results were disappointing. Overall, while most of the subjects did prefer the higher bit rate encoding, "there wasn't a tremendous distinction between the tracks encoded at 128Kb/s and those encoded at 256Kb/s. None of [of the subjects] were absolutely sure about their choices with either set of earphones, even after an average of five back-to-back A/B listening tests."Personally, I'm skeptical. I listen to quite a bit of classical music and jazz, and I'm very much more inclined to buy these at the higher bit rate. Maximum PC concluded that the lack of DRM and not audio quality is the most important aspect of iTunes Plus (though they don't think it's worth 30 cents a track). So, dear TUAW readers, what do you think? Can you hear the difference between 128 and 256kbps AAC?[via uneasy silence]
Getting iTunes Plus music on your PSP
iTunes Plus is finally here. With iTunes Plus, users can download and purchase DRM-free music that can play on any device ... including the PSP. The files come at an incredible 256kbps bitrate, something any audiophile will be able to appreciate. We took the newly released iTunes 7.2 for a spin to show you how to transfer the new iTunes Plus files to your PSP.
iTunes Plus Challenge
Wow. After all that fuss, it turns out that I don't own a single upgradable EMI track. My cost for bringing my library out of the dark ages and into the brave new DRM-free world? Nothing. At least that's nothing until I go out and buy a $1.29 track later this morning so I can play with the data file and see whether it will play back on my, you know, Zune. Curiously enough I do own EMI plus-worthy tracks (for example, David Bowie's "Life on Mars") but I have not been offered an option to upgrade them.So here's the challenge: Who of you out there in reader land has the biggest collection of upgradable tracks and how much is iTunes asking you to fork over to pay for those upgrades? Let us know in the comments. The winner gets bragging rights ands we will issue him or her a virtual TUAW huzzah (try saying that three times fast.)
iTunes 7.2 Gallery
%Gallery-3526% If you're stuck at work and can't get away to take a peek at the new iTunes 7.2 update, we've put together this handy gallery of screen shots showing you the new 7.2 features. In iTunes 7.2, you'll find a new link to iTunes Plus in the iTunes Quick Links. Select it and iTunes will prompt you to update preferences (whether to use iTunes plus for your albums whenever possible) and your licensing agreement--that's another agreement on top of the one you had to agree to just to install the program. TUAW's 7.2 gallery is a work in progress. Expect updates throughout the day as the new features come on line.
