[Offtopic] digital music

[stephen at melbpc.org.au]

Want to Copy iTunes Music? Go Ahead, Apple Says 

By BRAD STONE  www.nytimes.com  Published: January 6, 2009 

SAN FRANCISCO — In moves that will help shape the online future of the 
music business, Apple said Tuesday that it would remove anticopying 
restrictions on all of the songs in its popular iTunes Store and allow 
record companies to set a range of prices for them.

Beginning this week, three of the four major music labels — Sony Music 
Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group — will begin 
selling music through iTunes without digital rights management software, 
or D.R.M., which controls the copying and use of digital files. The 
fourth, EMI, was already doing so.

In return, Apple, whose dominance in online music sales gives it powerful 
leverage, agreed to a longstanding demand of the music labels and said it 
would move away from its insistence on pricing all individual song 
downloads on iTunes at 99 cents.

Instead, the majority of songs will drop to 69 cents beginning in April, 
while the biggest hits and newest songs will go for $1.29. Others that 
are moderately popular will remain at 99 cents.

The music companies are hoping that their eagerly awaited compromise with 
Apple will give a lift to digital downloads. They will be able to make 
more money on their best-selling songs and increase the appeal of older 
ones. 

And with the copying restrictions removed, people will be able to freely 
shift the songs they buy on iTunes among computers, phones and other 
digital devices.

Technologically sophisticated fans of digital music complain that D.R.M. 
imposes unfair restrictions on what they can do with the tracks they have 
bought ..

. Apple said customers would be able to pay a one-time fee to strip 
copying restrictions from music they have already bought on iTunes, at 30 
cents a song or 30 percent of the album price. ITunes customers can 
achieve the same effect by burning all of their music to a CD and then 
reimporting the music into the iTunes software, although this reduces 
sound quality somewhat ..  Apple reported the changes in iTunes at its 
keynote presentation at the annual Macworld conference ..
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Cheers people
Stephen Loosley
Victoria, Australia