According to a recent cnet article (click here) Apple is closing in on finally releasing DRM (digital rights management) free songs on iTunes from most of the major record labels. On the surface this sounds like a great plan, however, if the sources are correct, they are also giving up on their stringent $0.99 per song price tag.
Apple fans have long thought highly of the company for fighting to keep songs at that price point and no higher. Sure, many older or not well known songs will drop in price, but many newer or “hit” songs will go up in price, even if only temporarily. This is great news for music labels, but not so great for consumers and iTunes lovers.
Legal sale of DRM free music is not new, Amazon has been doing so for some time (for more information click here), and doing it with a better pricing scheme than Apple. So why the change now? Why would record companies allow Amazon to sell music at $0.99 per song without protection, and not Apple? It’s possible that the reason is that iTunes is still the largest digital music store on the market, and once the pricing level is cracked there, they hope to follow suit on other sites.
Maybe this new pricing plan will entice some of the last few holdout musicians to release music digitally, but I’ve quite enjoyed being able to purchase almost any song for just under a dollar before tax and know that almost any album will be just under ten. I suppose those days are going to now be short lived, they will be missed.
Filed under: Current Events
Seems a little ridiculous that just because they will be selling the music like they SHOULD have in the first place, that they’re going to completely do away with the price practices they’ve held this entire time.
All DRM and things like SecuROM do is encourage piracy, look at recent video game releases, specifically Spore. All the DRM included within the software did was hurt sales and buyers, while pirates came away with a better product.
You’ve got that right!