Apple Adds 8 Million More DRM-free Tracks to iTunes

Posted 01/06/2009 at 6:30pm | by Pulkit Chandna

iTunes has expanded its library of DRM-free music with the addition of 8 million songs devoid of any copyright protection. The move that was announced today at Macworld comes after Apple reached an understanding with the three largest music labels, Sony BMG, Warner Music, and Universal. It already has a similar agreement with EMI and has been providing music belonging to that label sans any DRM for around a year.

Apple is also going to allow people the luxury of ridding their iTunes music library of its copyright protection. But for that users will have to shelve out an extra 30 cents for every song they want to convert. Another 2 million DRM-free tracks are going to become available on iTunes in April.

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dougau

January 07, 2009 at 9:40am

Having to fork up 30 cents per track to get the DRM free version of what you already bought may actually piss alot of people off. It sure maks Apple look greedy.

codepath

January 07, 2009 at 2:46pm

It didn't say the HAD to do it. Just that could choose to.

I Jedi

January 07, 2009 at 5:19am

This was indeed a good move for iTunes, I think. In short, offering people more DRM-free choices to choose from helps ensure that they help maintain their position as the number one provider of online digital music. I say this because sites like Amazon.com offered non-DRM based music that had me attracted to them because of that single issue. Now that iTunes is offering this, too, more widely, I may shop there for my music selection in the future.

Nice to see that more and more companies are making the move and seeing the "error" of their ways.

Khaled

January 08, 2009 at 5:47am

now we have to deal with video DRM ...

Khaled

January 07, 2009 at 3:09am

Totally unrelated, but that new MacBook is one good looking machine ;)

fake gordon mah ung

January 06, 2009 at 8:22pm

Thirty-cents more for a song I already own! Does this mean that all DRM-free tracks will be $1.29.

BTW, I think the idiom is shell out, not shelve out.

Keith E. Whisman

January 06, 2009 at 7:06pm

8million? Well that's alot.

Again BTW wasn't there an article a short while ago about Apple getting rid of DRM entirely? What became of that? Are they still going to can DRM?

nekollx

January 06, 2009 at 6:39pm

Whydo i have to pay extra to have the music i bought work on my conputers?

pellier

January 06, 2009 at 6:38pm

only apple would make custoers pay more money to unlock their music

nekollx

January 06, 2009 at 6:52pm

i might buy this if it was a 1-10 cent fee per track i mean geeze 30 cents? that's a third of the average track rate of 99 cents.

Imagine if you baught a CD that only worked in Sony Brad CD players and then they sold you a new one that wpould work on all CD players a year later for seven bucks (average albulm retail rate being $21)

Digital-Storm

January 06, 2009 at 9:10pm

It is actually not that bad. Considering that you get 256bit songs all drm free isntead of the 128bit songs with drm. Also, any song you purchase now comes drm free as long as it has a + next to the price. It is standard now.