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The new iTunes Plus store
Apple's new iTunes Plus is now selling unprotected music at a premium price

The wave washing away DRM hits Apple’s music service with today with the announcement of iTunes Plus. The DRM-free music tracks do command a premium over the traditional $0.99 protected tracks, with each 256 kbps AAC encoded track costing the consumer $1.29 each. iTunes customers who have already purchased tracks that are now available on iTunes Plus may upgrade their library of previously purchased content to iTunes Plus tracks for just 30 cents a song and $3.00 for most albums.

Songs downloaded through iTunes Plus allow customers to use their purchased content without limitations on the type of music player or number of computers that purchased songs can be played on.

EMI is the first and only record label with its catalog available on the new service, as announced in April. “This is a tremendous milestone for digital music,” said Eric Nicoli, CEO of EMI Group. “Consumers are going to love listening to higher quality iTunes Plus tracks from their favorite EMI artists with no usage restrictions.”

Although only EMI currently stands alone on iTunes, more are promised within the near future. “Our customers are very excited about the freedom and amazing sound quality of iTunes Plus,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We expect more than half of the songs on iTunes will be offered in iTunes Plus versions by the end of this year.”

EMI’s venture into unchained music isn’t only on iTunes – the record company announced earlier this month its involvement with Amazon.com’s new MP3 music store.

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What?
By KaiserCSS on 5/30/2007 12:21:17 PM , Rating: 5
quote:
“This is a tremendous milestone for digital music...”


This is outrageous. Since when was Apple the only company to offer DRM-free music? And how is something so obvious and irritating a "tremendous milestone"? I swear, comments like that really irk me. They swear they're doing something special even though it's what the consumers have been craving for a long while.

And they're doing it wrong! An extra 30% per song for DRM-freedom? No, they shouldn't be charging extra for something that should be standard.




RE: What?
By TomZ on 5/30/2007 12:28:36 PM , Rating: 5
I agree - I also think they should be offered as MP3, since that is the format with the broadest compatibility across devices. AAC may or may not be technically superior, but MP3 is the only format supported by all devices.

Apple likes to start with something bad, and gradually make it better and better so that people think they are heroes, e.g., for finally "rescuing" the consumer from DRM. LOL.


RE: What?
By DEredita on 5/30/2007 12:30:31 PM , Rating: 1
oooh reading pwn3d me. I didn't notice they were in AAC format. That sucks.


RE: What?
By michael2k on 5/30/07, Rating: 0
RE: What?
By bunnyfubbles on 5/30/2007 1:42:15 PM , Rating: 2
Apple has adopted that format as their own and I don't think its heads and tails better than a good VBR mp3 encoding. They push their format because they can get a bigger piece of the pie with every song sold. Ideally (for Apple) their AAC would take over mp3 as the most popular and dominant format, similar to what Microsoft wants with WMA.

If we were lucky, open source formats (such as ogg vorbis) would take over.


RE: What?
By plinden on 5/30/2007 2:09:18 PM , Rating: 1
I suggest you do some reading about AAC ( Advanced Audio Coding, not Apple Audio Coding).

It's a MPEG standard, and is license-free (ie. no one pays anyone else, certainly not Apple, to distribute AAC content) unlike either MP3 or WMA.


RE: What?
By chucky2 on 5/30/2007 2:22:15 PM , Rating: 2
There's already a way around Apple's DRM, and has been for a while. JHymn, then once iTunes 6.x.x.x came out and JHymn broke, QTFairUse6 and myFairTunes 6 came out and did the same thing...although you still need JHymn to do the conversion.

I don't remember what bitrate the DRM'd AAC is, but if this non-DRM AAC is 256 and the DRM'd is less, that may be worth the .30c USD extra right there to have higher quality source before conversion.

They sound fine and all on an MP3 player, but try playing those on high dollar audio systems...the lack of true quality can be heard.

Chuck


RE: What?
By walk2k on 5/30/2007 2:53:12 PM , Rating: 4
AAC was developed by Dolby Labs and is licensed by them through their subsidiary, Via Licensing. It is NOT free.

http://www.vialicensing.com/licensing/MPEG4_fees.c...

Everyone who uses AAC pays a royalty to Dolby/Via.


RE: What?
By plinden on 5/30/2007 6:31:07 PM , Rating: 2
See FAQ question #6 - http://www.vialicensing.com/Licensing/MPEG4_FAQ.cf...

You must pay a license fee if you develop and sell an encoder or decoder. There no license fee for distribution of AAC.


RE: What?
By walk2k on 5/30/2007 8:11:46 PM , Rating: 2
Right, and you need an encoder to create the files you intend to distribute.........

Unless you steal them I guess.

Or did you intend to create these AAC files with the power of positive thinking?


RE: What?
By michael2k on 5/31/2007 12:44:19 PM , Rating: 2
Apple has already paid those fees; it's why iTunes has AAC encoding built in. No stealing necessary.


RE: What?
By Jack Ripoff on 5/31/2007 12:57:29 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
"Right, and you need an encoder to create the files you intend to distribute.........

Unless you steal them I guess."

You need an encoder, but that doesn't mean you have to develop one. FAAC is a good, free AAC encoder.

http://www.audiocoding.com/

quote:
"Or did you intend to create these AAC files with the power of positive thinking?"

Well, you can code these files by-hand if you like ;)


RE: What?
By plinden on 5/31/2007 3:04:06 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Or did you intend to create these AAC files with the power of positive thinking?


That's funny. As far as I know, I'm not creating any AAC files. Apple's paying that for providing us with iTunes (and in case you didn't notice, iTunes is a free download).

You don't pay any fee for using AAC files, and Apple doesn't pay anything for distributing them. I can download the source code for an encoder/decoder (linked elsewhere here), build it on my own Linux box, and not owe any fees. If I were a half decent musician, I could record, encode and distribute my music as AAC and not owe a penny to Dolby/Via, and especially not Apple, since Apple has zero rights to any fee from AAC.

That's not to say that Apple doesn't recoup the license fee it pays for its encoder and decoder by adding a small amount into the price of a track, but neither Apple nor Dolby/Via get anything for any particular AAC song sold.

By the way, this whole subthread was started because you didn't read my post properly. I said "no one pays anyone else, certainly not Apple, to distribute AAC content" and suddenly you're talking about professional AAC encoding ... sure, I could have qualified my post by talking about fees for development of encoders and decoders but I thought content of the original was clear enough.


RE: What?
By Jack Ripoff on 5/31/2007 12:38:39 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
"I agree - I also think they should be offered as MP3, since that is the format with the broadest compatibility across devices. AAC may or may not be technically superior, but MP3 is the only format supported by all devices."

It can be easily converted thou.

quote:
"Apple likes to start with something bad, and gradually make it better and better so that people think they are heroes, e.g., for finally "rescuing" the consumer from DRM. LOL."

Apple is not the only one however. What about Microsoft Windows not having memory protection up until 2001 with Windows XP? Yes, I know Windows NT and 2000 were already in the market way before Windows XP and had memory protection, but they weren't marketed at the home user and software compatibility was less-than-perfect. The common user compares Windows XP to Windows ME and think Microsoft's a hero for finally "rescuing" the consumer from instability. LOL!

PS: Memory protection has been available on x86 systems since the 386, which was launched on 1986, only 9 years before Windows 95.


RE: What?
By FoxFour on 6/1/2007 1:49:24 AM , Rating: 2
I submit that WAV is supported by every device that supports MP3, and then some. ;P

I'll never pay for music in a non-lossless format. I'd be willing to pay USD $1.29 per song in FLAC (and assume the responsibility of decompressing it to WAV for incompatible devices), but never for a lossy format.


RE: What?
By michael2k on 5/30/2007 12:30:25 PM , Rating: 3
Isn't it a milestone though? According to Webster’s, a milestone, when used figuratively, is a significant event in history.

Before now you had the choice of:
1) CDs
2) DRMed 128kbit@0.99
3) P2P

Now we have a fourth choice:
4) no DRM 256kbit@1.29

I mean, consumers can want something forever but it isn't actually important until it happens right? So when someone figures out how to make gold, that too is a milestone.

BTW, the extra 30% is for the double in bit rate PLUS the DRM free.


RE: What?
By VooDooAddict on 5/30/2007 12:47:19 PM , Rating: 2
2.5) Subscription DRM. $10-$15/month for unlimited.

For me 1 + 2.5 + 3 is the ideal.

2.5 to try out all kinds of new music for around the cost of a CD a month. 1 to buy the albums I really like and rip them for any use. 3 for impossible to find imports/fan made materials.


RE: What?
By KristopherKubicki (blog) on 5/30/2007 1:17:00 PM , Rating: 2
Beatport, which I've been using for years, sells DRM-free independent labels for $1.29 to $1.99. The music selection is smaller, but you can get FLAC, WAV, whatever.


RE: What?
By Oregonian2 on 5/30/07, Rating: 0
RE: What?
By walk2k on 5/30/2007 3:02:43 PM