iTunes pricing and DRM schemes updated for 2009
Phil Schiller today outlined Apple's new pricing scheme for iTunes music, and announced additional music that will be available DRM-free.
In April, depending on the label, songs will be available at three price points: 69 cents, 99 cents, and $1.29. Apple says many more songs will be priced at 69 cents than $1.29, but new releases will likely cost more. Albums will mostly remain at the $9.99 price point.
69 cent songs will have greater restrictions on how they can be used: For each song, users will only be able to download it to one Mac, burn it to one CD, and copy it to one iPod. Turns out this was idle speculation from one of our colleagues, and not part of the changes today. Sorry about that. -- RP
More songs will be also be made available as part of the iTunes Plus program, which features higher-quality, DRM-free music files. Eight million (of 10 million total) songs will be available through iTunes Plus today, and every track will be available DRM-free by the end of March. (Thanks, Chris!)
iPhone users that connect to the Internet via 3G also got good news: They will be able to connect to the iTunes store via both WiFi and 3G starting today. Update: Others with first-generation iPhones here in the Media Center report that the iTunes store appears to work over EDGE, too, but weren't able to test it.
As many expected, Schiller announced new sales figures for the iTunes store, saying Apple has 75 million accounts, and is now the number-one music retailer in the United States.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
bruce said 2:41PM on 1-06-2009
But once you burn the first CD can't you just rip it back to the computer?
Also iTunes 3G Store does not allow the download of files over 10MB. This makes it impossible to download albums and iTunesPlus content larger than about 5:20.
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teo said 2:43PM on 1-06-2009
How will they restrict the use of the 69 cent songs if they are free of DRM?
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ChrisG said 2:42PM on 1-06-2009
I checked in the itunes store to see what it would cost to upgrade my music and apple wanted to charge me for a number of songs that I didn't purchase though them but had 'acquired' elsewhere.
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AJ said 3:17PM on 1-06-2009
69 cent songs will have greater restrictions on how they can be used: For each song, users will only be able to download it to one Mac, burn it to one CD, and copy it to one iPod.
Bit strange, no mention of this in the Keynote or press release, and not in keeping with 100% tracks DRM free by the end of the quarter....
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Jake said 6:14PM on 1-06-2009
Download to one mac, burn to one CD, and copy to one iPod?!?!?!?!
ARE YOU KIDDING?!
Will they at least offer a 99cent option for the 69cent songs, in case you would like to actually use your music?
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Chris Welch said 2:46PM on 1-06-2009
Not quite, Robert.
8 million songs are available in iTunes Plus format TODAY. The remaining 2 million will be available by the end of March.
And where did that information regarding the 69 cent restrictions come from?
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Robert Palmer said 2:52PM on 1-06-2009
Thanks Chris -- you're right. I've updated the post about the 8 million tracks number.
A colleague mentioned in our internal chatroom the details about the 69 cent options, but it turns out he was speculating, and not quoting something from the show. We regret the error. The post has been updated correcting that statement.
tuaw said 2:48PM on 1-06-2009
Cognitive dissonance here - Phil said *ALL* 10M songs would be DRM free eventually, but you're claiming more restrictive DRM on $0.69 songs?
Which one is it?
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Quix said 4:53PM on 1-06-2009
Hooray! Now I no longer need to slog over to Amazon to buy a song that I want. I tended to avoid anything in iTunes that wasn't iTunes Plus. Which was the vast majority of its catalog. The iTunes Plus selection was pitifully small.
This is great news from a Macworld that offered very little of substance. :(
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T.R. said 2:56PM on 1-06-2009
If everything will now be DRM-free, does this mean that there won't be the limit of authorizing five computers that can play songs purchased from iTunes?
It would be great not to have to worry about that anymore.
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Beth said 3:01PM on 1-06-2009
My problem at the moment is that I have about 15 albums that I purchased but are not showing up as being eligible to upgrade, even though when I go to the album page it shows that they ARE available as iTunes Plus tracks. And is there a way to only upgrade SOME of your music? There's a good 1/3 of it that I am *not* willing to pay for, but only see the big button that buys all the upgrades at once...
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Jeff said 3:01PM on 1-06-2009
iTunes appears to be working for me with the EDGE network.
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Chris said 10:17AM on 1-07-2009
Working on Edge for me also. I downloaded the free track from 'Company of Thieves' succesfully. Although the iTunes app did crash once during the download.
The song was 4.4mb and it took about 2.5 - 3 minutes to download. Have not tried a full album or anything over 10mb.
I think this is great if you just have to get that one song out of your head.
This is going to hammer AT&T networks. Oh well, force them to improve them faster.
Jeff said 3:10PM on 1-06-2009
The error remains un-redacted in the RSS feed.
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L3 said 3:43PM on 1-06-2009
nice word.
Andre said 3:05PM on 1-06-2009
Still not sure why someone would pay anything at all for a compressed copy of an original.
256kb/s AAC is still not as good as I get when I buy the CD and copy it to whatever I like.
I use uncompressed WAV files on the hard-disk in my car (they sound perfect!). I use 320kb/s MP3 on my iPhone & AppleTV. On my home stereo, I stick in the original uncompressed CD. I have all this flexibility, with no compression, no DRM, etc., and I have the original as a backup copy.
An uncompressed WAV file of a song is about 40MB. That's nothing for me to download. When they start selling those, then I MIGHT think about paying for music. Until then..... again, why would someone PAY for a compressed copy of an original???? Obviously people are doing it, but I don't understand.
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Ed said 3:15PM on 1-06-2009
Andre,
I think you'd be happier if they sold DRM-free Apple Lossless (ALAC) files. They're about 1/3 the size of WAV, support metadata, and are of equal audio quality.
Personally, I can't hear the difference between a CD and 256kbps AAC. The new changes to the store are exactly what Apple needed to do in order to win me over as a music buyer. I've been unwilling to buy their DRM-laden tracks.
Andre said 3:23PM on 1-06-2009
Ed, don't get me wrong - it's definitely for the better. DRM is/was bad. Compression is bad too though, and I'm not going to pay for it if I can get the uncompressed for a bit more.
When they start selling uncompressed, then I'll be interested.
It will have to be in an industry standard format that all my 'devices' will understand, as well as all computer OSes. So far, that would leave WAV format (my car can only play MP3 and WAV).
snowy2004 said 3:34PM on 1-06-2009
I can see many reasons why people would buy compressed copy.
A) It's what's offered: Fact is, if you want to get music off of iTunes, that's what you're going to get. And if you want music quickly, iTunes is good for that.
B) Quality: Say what you want about a song's kbps, I (personally) don't really hear a difference between the 128 and 256 kbps tracks off of iTunes. Maybe there's a small difference on a certain track and it's not like I'm doing side by side comparisons but still. If I can't notice much difference, why would I want to deal with the big issue with uncompressed tracks...
C) Size: 40MB! For one song! That's going to fill up iPods quickly. Plus, you might not have a issue with downloading tracks of that size, but chances are someone would. Compressed tracks, by their nature of being compressed, are smaller.
I'll admit to not being a big audiophile but I just don't see why compressed songs seems like such an issue. I get a decent sounding track at a decent price that's taking up a small amount of space. Plus, I don't need to deal with CDs or full albums.
Ed said 3:36PM on 1-06-2009
There's a difference between lossy compression (AAC and MP3) and lossless compression (ALAC and FLAC).