In an unprecedented move, Apple senior vice president of worldwide product marketing Phil Schiller announced at Macworld today that not only will iTunes offer DRM-free songs, but that there will be three tiers of pricing based on the respective record label. The price tiers will be 69 cents, 99 cents, and $1.29 per song.
While the pricing is a big enough story unto itself, the fact that Apple is moving towards copy protection free downloads is a huge victory for consumers who long have had issues of buying digital music and being stuck with limited outlets to play it. This will allow music buyers the same freedom as if it was purchased as a hard copy (CD, cassette or vinyl).
Hurrah!
Last 4 posts by U2isABLE
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Ah, the fun that might be to re-purchase U2 tracks. The Ultimate U2 collection was $99 discounted with purchase of a U2 iPod, or $149 without.
If you want to upgrade to the Pro version of iTunes, which allows 256 instead of 128 bit encoding, it would be 33 cents a track, or 30% of the cost of the album. The lower rate is $44.70 for the cost of the album because there are 446 tracks in that collection…. and at 33 cents per would bring it to $133.80.
If you want to upgrade again to another new format, you are rebuying AGAIN. Damn, how many new ways can the music industry get you to rebuy the same material?