Digital music just got a little friendlier. Apple announced yesterday that it will be removing DRM locks from iTunes music downloads. This marks a significant shift in focus for Apple and the major record labels and is mostly good news for consumers, although some songs will be increasing and price and upgrading your old downloads to DRM-free versions will cost you. Here’s a brief backgrounder on this change so you can sound all educated and techie at the water cooler tomorrow:
What is DRM?
DRM stands for “digital rights management”. It includes different forms of copy protection, digital locks, and restrictions on what you can do with the file and how you can play it. For iTunes songs, this has traditionally meant limitations on what kind of MP3 players can play the song and how many copies of the song you can have at any given time. If you’ve ever been unable to play a song you downloaded from iTunes on your Zune or generic MP3 player, or unable to play a song from another source on your iPod, there’s a good chance that DRM was to blame.
What’s wrong with DRM?
Nothing, if you’re a record company goon. But if you’re a consumer who wants to legally download music*, you’ll probably find DRM locks to be overly restrictive and prevent you from doing normal, legal things with the music you’ve paid for, like playing it on whatever device you chose or creating backups of your files. It also restricts your ability to remix, sample, or convert your music files.
So what changes is Apple making?
Apple has announced that it will be removing DRM from the vast majority of its songs. This means that you will be able to play iTunes songs on other devices and copy as you see fit. The ultimate goal is to have all songs eventually available as iTunes Plus- DRM-free and encoded at 256kbps.
How much will the DRM-free songs cost?
Apple says that the new DRM-free songs will cost $0.69, $0.99 or $1.29 per song, depending on the particular title. This is a change from the previous pricing model of all songs being $0.99- for some songs this will mean a price reduction of up to 30%, while others will increase by up to 30%. Apple says that more songs will go to $0.69 than to $1.29, but I’ll wait and see. Given my questionable taste in music, I expect most of my choices will be at the lower end of the scale.
Can I upgrade my old songs?
Yes, but it’s not free. To get DRM-free versions of songs you’ve previously downloaded from iTunes, you’ll need to pay a fee of $0.30, although bulk upgrade packages are available. The iTunes store actually has an automated way to do this for all your music through the “Upgrade All” feature- my cost to upgrade all iTunes downloads would have been about $70.
Won’t this encourage piracy?
Probably not. If you want to find free music right now, it’s quite easy to do. Those who aren’t concerned about copyright infringement will continue to download music from P2P sources, but those consumers willing to pay for legal downloads will now have more options and greater flexibility. If anything, DRM-free music may very well tempt some of those from the former category to join the latter category (and I just might be in this group).
* I’m not getting into the debate over the legality of downloading music in Canada. I’ll save that one for another day.
Image by Martin Krzywinski
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This announcement thrills me… I don’t know how many times I’ve gotten into a near-murderous rage over my music not working. I’d taken to p2p networks to get DRM-free versions of songs I’d legally downloaded — I believe in supporting the music industry but I don’t believe that I’ve used up my right to have a song just because I’ve changed computers/devices too many times. It’s like losing my CD collection just because I moved around too much (though I did lose a box of CDs only to find it four years later).
In the past, I’ve been mostly a Puretracks customer but in doing this, iTunes wins my business.