[flashnolan]

Quote:

CUPERTINO, California—April 2, 2007—Apple® today announced that EMI Music’s entire digital catalog of music will be available for purchase DRM-free (without digital rights management) from the iTunes® Store (Apple - iTunes - The world’s most popular digital media player.) worldwide in May. DRM-free tracks from EMI will be offered at higher quality 256 kbps AAC encoding, resulting in audio quality indistinguishable from the original recording, for just $1.29 per song. In addition, iTunes customers will be able to easily upgrade their entire library of all previously purchased EMI content to the higher quality DRM-free versions for just 30 cents a song. iTunes will continue to offer its entire catalog, currently over five million songs, in the same versions as today—128 kbps AAC encoding with DRM—at the same price of 99 cents per song, alongside DRM-free higher quality versions when available. Source

I can't speak for other people, but I have found iTunes' DRM really painful. Obviously this is not pertinent for those of you who torrent, eshare, or otherwise questionable obtain their digital music. However, for those of us that try to keep things above reproach this is an interesting development. I am not sure if I will go for the higher quality and price or just continue to get CDs and rip in whatever format I prefer. For me personally I cannot hear any difference above 256kbps.

 

[Nocturnal310]

Steve Jobs does his market research by looking at his face in the mirror every morning.

read it in the book iCon.

 

[M0T0XGUY]

^ That makes little to no sense.

 

[Calexico]

He's trying to say Steve Jobs does whatever he wants I guess.

 

[shigzeo]

so i guess that would be option 3?

 

[rederanged]

That press release is 2 years old. Didn't Apple do away with DRM altogether a couple of months ago?

 

[krmathis]

Easy said - They don't get my money until they serve lossless compressed audio.
No way I am willing to pay for lossy encoded music...

 

[craiglester]

Amazon is still 99 cents per track, same bitrate as itunes "plus".

itunes is possibly the worst price/performance ratio out there for music.

I cannot imagine there'll be a great deal of music people actually want at the 69 cent tier.

Ahh here we are..
Hottest tracks to cost $1.29 at iTunes starting April 7 - Los Angeles Times

curiously, no mention of bitrate. No DRM is a bit of a positive step, but i'm with Krmathis on this one.

Buy CD, RIP to your choice of codec, STORE CD somewhere safe.. still the best quality for digital.

 

[M0T0XGUY]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Calexico /img/forum/go_quote.gif He's trying to say Steve Jobs does whatever he wants I guess.

I know what he's trying to say, it's just a rather silly statement.

 

[PiccoloNamek]

All of the songs I have bought from iTunes (including non-iTunes plus songs) are DRM free.

 

[Ishcabible]

Quote:

Originally Posted by craiglester /img/forum/go_quote.gif Buy CD, RIP to your choice of codec, STORE CD somewhere safe.. still the best quality for digital.

QFT!

I honestly don't understand people that buy entire albums on itunes if they can usually get the CD for cheaper and not lose their entire collection forever should a hard drive fail.

 

[Nocturnal310]

Quote:

Originally Posted by M0T0XGUY /img/forum/go_quote.gif I know what he's trying to say, it's just a rather silly statement.

it was tongue-in-cheek...u shud get out more you know.

 

[Jaska]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ishcabible /img/forum/go_quote.gif QFT! I honestly don't understand people that buy entire albums on itunes if they can usually get the CD for cheaper and not lose their entire collection forever should a hard drive fail.

x2! I use enough different sources for new CDs that I always actually pay less for the physical CD than it would cost for downloads. That being true, I wouldn't even pay $.99-1.29 per track for lossless downloads.

 

[member1982]

i would pay more for ALAC files they are the best But yeah CDs still awesome, plus you get additional DVD content and the brilliant artwork, trouble is for me, i just buy the CD so that i can rip it into ALAC / FLAC for computer play

 

[Suntory_Times]

Quote:

Originally Posted by flashnolan /img/forum/go_quote.gif I can't speak for other people, but I have found iTunes' DRM really painful. Obviously this is not pertinent for those of you who torrent, eshare, or otherwise questionable obtain their digital music. However, for those of us that try to keep things above reproach this is an interesting development. I am not sure if I will go for the higher quality and price or just continue to get CDs and rip in whatever format I prefer. For me personally I cannot hear any difference above 256kbps.

I just buy it on cd or vinyl (or blu ray in some casses, so I can listen and watch).