Let me start this post off by pointing out that I am not a lawyer, and I don't even play one on TV. I have, however, been called for jury duty a few times, so I know my way around a courthouse.

Melvin Rivera isn't a lawyer either, but he and his wife own two iPhones. Melvin knew that iPhone apps are wrapped with Apple's delicious flavor of DRM called 'FairPlay' that has some fairly open terms of use. You can authorize up to five computers to access items purchased from the iTunes store (that aren't iTunes Plus tracks, since they don't have any DRM on them) and you can then play those tracks (and one assumes applications) on any unlimited number of iPods and iPhones.

Melvin, being the clever man that he is, realized that he shouldn't have to purchase two copies of Super Monkey Ball: one for his wife's iPhone and another for his. FairPlay makes it clear that those apps should be able to run on multiple iPhones, so after some poking around Melvin got it to work. Check out his blog for the blow by blow account.

Clearly, this approach is kosher as far as the DRM is concerned, but do iPhone apps have licenses that supersede the FairPlay wrapper? I haven't agreed to any per app licensing agreements when installing something on my iPhone (as of yet) though that doesn't mean they don't exist (as I pointed out above I'm no Perry Mason).

Over at the Guardian there's an interesting article on How Apple is Changing DRM. While there's not a lot that's new here, it does usefully cover what has happened over the last few years with Digital Rights Management and how DRM has basically come to bite the record companies in the, um, keister.

Way back when the iTunes (Music) Store started, the record companies were clamoring for DRM to protect against Napster and other P2P sharing, and Apple obligingly complied with FairPlay. Over time, as the iPod became the portable device of choice, the record companies basically found themselves beholden to Apple, painted into a corner by that self-same DRM. Now they're giving up DRM on services like Amazon MP3 precisely to get access to the iPod without Apple.

The question for the future of DRM is whether subscription models like Rhapsody will take off and whether a hitherto reluctant Apple might embrace the subscription model as a response to the rise of other DRM-free download stores. In any case the article is worth a read for anybody interested in the future of digital media.

[via Digg]

Sure, you can now download music from the iTunes store without DRM but that doesn't mean you should just willy nilly start sharing that music with your friends. For one thing, it's illegal. For another, your account information is embedded into that m4a music file. Don't believe me? Try this yourself.

1. Launch Terminal. You'll need to be comfortable at the command line to perform this check.

2. Navigate to one of your iTunes plus downloads. If you have a US iTunes account, you can download the iTunes plus "Ooh La" single of the week.

3. Use the UNIX "strings" command to look at the text in your data and grep to search for your name. e.g.
strings 01\ Ooh\ La.m4a | grep name
Alternatively, open all the strings in TextEdit:
strings 01\ Ooh\ La.m4a | open -f.

Bottom line: DRM-free doesn't mean that Apple suddenly supports piracy.

If you're stuck at work and can't get away to take a peek at the new iTunes 7.2 update, we've put together this handy gallery of screen shots showing you the new 7.2 features. In iTunes 7.2, you'll find a new link to iTunes Plus in the iTunes Quick Links. Select it and iTunes will prompt you to update preferences (whether to use iTunes plus for your albums whenever possible) and your licensing agreement--that's another agreement on top of the one you had to agree to just to install the program.

TUAW's 7.2 gallery is a work in progress. Expect updates throughout the day as the new features come on line.

At TUAW we've been following the DRM-free EMI track deal for some time. We're delighted to announce that these tracks will finally available for sale over at the iTunes Store later today (Apple announced they are available, but not in my copy of iTunes at the moment).

DRM-free tracks will cost you $1.29 each rather than the normal $0.99 per track you normally pay. The extra money buys you more audio quality than the standard DRM'ed tracks (256 kbps AAC versus 128 kbs AAC). Expect larger data downloads as your audio files expand to accommodate those extra bits.

iTunes Plus requires iTunes 7.2.

You might have read Dave's writeup of Mac OS X Hint's terminal tip for locating EMI songs using mdifind. I tried it out myself but I just couldn't get it to work. So I thought I'd give you a far easier way to accomplish the same thing.

In Finder, select File -> Find (Command-F). Select "Other..." from the search attribute pop-up and when the "Select a search attribute" dialog opens, choose Copyright ("Copyright information about this item") from the list. Search for Copyright Contains EMI and let Spotlight do all the work for you.

Now that Apple has penned a deal to open up EMI songs, will Microsoft be next? The Times Online writes that Microsoft has hinted that it may follow the Apple model and sell EMI songs at Zune Marketplace without DRM. No deals are signed or announced yet, but an EMI spokesman said that negotiations with non-Apple vendors are ongoing.

As I've posted before, I think that the Apple/EMI deal is the first chink in the ship that will sink DRM use. Just like all those late and unlamented software copy protection schemes of the 1980's, DRM may soon be a historical footnote. Only time will tell, but I suspect that the iTunes DRM-free option will encourage a new wave of purchasers that have previously spurned the store due to DRM concerns.

Have you ever considered selling your own music on iTunes? A service called TuneCore makes that possible. You pay a small charge to deliver your album to iTunes plus a yearly fee. If people start buying your tunes, you earn $0.70 per track.

So let's say you create an album with 8 tracks. You pay $0.99 per track upload plus another $0.99 for the album listing, and $9.98 for the first year album fee. That works out to--scratches head--8 x $0.99 + 1 x $0.99 + $9.98 = $18.89 to upload and store that 8-track album. After the first year, you continue to pay $9.98 per year per album. That album would start earning money for you after the first 26-or-so sales, if I did the math right which is always questionable.

So what does selling through iTunes get you? First of all, nearly anyone who doesn't use Linux can use iTunes to buy your tracks, so your product is pretty accessible. Second, I'm guessing that TuneCore takes care of a lot of the accounting issues, so you just upload and you're done until you start earning money--if you start earning money.

Obviously, you'd have to take care of your own marketing, but this would make a great way to distribute material for non-profits like schools for audio-only material. This of course, assumes, that TuneCore ends up being reliable and trustworthy. TuneCore offers a complete FAQ of their service here.

The results are in! When Apple announced that users will be able to upgrade some of their music to higher bitrate, DRM-free files for $0.30 each, we asked, will you be making the upgrade? Sixty four percent of the 3,951 readers who responded said, "Yes," and the remaining thirty six percent - 1,408 readers - said, "No."

A number of you commented that you would have selected "Some" if it had been an option, so take that into consideration when viewing our highly unscientific results. Personally, I won't be upgrading, as I'm not an audiophile and don't feel restricted by Fairplay. C'est la vie.

The deal is signed. DRM is optional. iTunes is much less "crippled-by-design". So what will the EMI/Apple deal mean to iTunes in the long run? Here are my predictions. Feel free to chime in with your own in the comments.

• The 99-cent flat pricing model is dead. Once people get used to the two-tiered system, I expect backlist prices to drop--and new release prices to rise.
• Once EMI folds, the rest of the music industry will follow. If it makes money, it makes money. And if it makes more money than before, it kind of defeats the whole "Piracy is costing the music industry" argument.
• The 128 kbps track is on the way out. You can always downsample, but you can't upsample. It doesn't cost Apple all that much more to store and send better quality music. I see the lower quality tracks disappearing over time.

Earlier today, Scott posted details of the new EMI upgrade pricing. It's going to cost you thirty cents to upgrade your music to the new higher-quality DRM-free tracks. So what do those thirty cents buy you? Here's a quick run down of the highlights.

Music Quality. First and most obviously, you're buying better quality music. The new 256 kbps AAC tracks offer twice the bitrate of the current DRM'ed selections. More bits mean that the music will be more faithful to the original audio quality. Can your ears really tell the difference? It depends on the kind of listener you are. My sister buys high-end speakers and goes on about the audio experience. Me, I still listen to audio tapes I've ripped to iTunes.

Interoperability. No DRM means that your music will play back on many more platforms, like the Zune. Of course if your media player doesn't support AAC, you're kind of out of luck unless you want to convert your music or buy a better player (which the lack of DRM makes possible). Interoperability also means you can better take advantage of fair use in other media like videos.

Best of both worlds. For your thirty cent upgrade, you will presumably own both the original track you downloaded as well as the better quality larger track you upgraded to. If you own a small shuffle as well as a larger nano, iPhone or video iPod, you might be able to create separate syncs to take advantage of the space-versus-quality versions of your tracks. This means a lot of extra work and it means you will need to buy your music twice. At least until Apple discontinues its 99-cent DRM pricing model, which is a door that these new $1.29 tracks opens.

Convenience. It's not exactly a secret that you've long been able to burn your iTunes purchases to CD and then rip them back without DRM. But for thirty cents, you can now skip the burn/rip step and save yourself a bit of time. If DRM-free music has an intrinsic value to you, perhaps those thirty cents isn't too high a price to pay to skip the work of doing it all by hand.

Building on the success of its iTunes-based "Hear Music" page, Starbucks has decided to launch its own record label. Hear Music will sign its own artists, and sell its recordings through Starbucks stores and iTunes. According to the AP, Ken Lombard, president of Starbucks Entertainment, says the company has focused on the success of its iTunes page.

One can only presume that in addition to the standard RIAA/Simon Cowell approach[1] to signing musicians, Starbucks will also provide a small percentage of highly-decaffeinated Fair Trade Certified™ recordings, where lucky musicians will receive equitable royalties if ordered in Grande or Venti sizes. Because "Medium" and "Large" talents do not exist at Starbucks.

[1] You have potential but frankly I was bored.[2]

[2] I really felt your performance. You made it your own.[3]

[3] Dawg. Dawg. Dawg.

Cnet tracked down this fascinating Swedish gadget. The PopCatcher MD-601 allows you to capture ad-free music from over-the-air radio stations and save them as DRM-free MP3s. PopCatcher distinguishes music from speech and captures songs automatically from whichever station you've tuned to.

It comes with its own MP3 player, but you certainly aren't tied to that player. The MP3 files are fully transportable. You can connect PopCatcher to a personal computer via its USB cable and use iTunes to load your new music library onto your iPod.

If I'm reading the webpage correctly, PopCatcher costs about 1500 krona which equates to about US $200. It seems to be for sale exclusively in Scandinavia at this time although they're taking notification requests for other countries.

TUAW reader Steve pointed us to this article about "In Search of Silicon Valley". It's a film about a trio (Steve O'Hear, Fleeta Siegel and Selwyn George) who travels from London to Silicon Valley, tracks down Apple pioneers Woz, Hertzfeld, Raskin, and Kawasaki as well as other net luminaries like Tim O'Reilly and Dan Kottke, and talks with them. The film takes place over the period of a month and the discussions range all over the place. You can read reviews at TechCrunch and Kirkville.

After a limited DVD distribution, they've decided to release the film via Streamburst, a site that allows consumers to buy video without DRM. The download will set you back a very reasonable #3.99 (about $8 in US currency), though I'm not sure if the online version will include the DVD extras (about 30 more minutes of interviews on top of the 55 minute film). You can view the trailer at their storefront. Other Streamburst films include "Long Way Round", a TV series with Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman that I've been meaning to watch for forever, and Race to Dakar about the 2006 Dakar Rally.

BitTorrent is opening up a new site that's going to sell TV shows and movies in direct competition to iTunes. But...

Engadget reveals that the new BitTorrent Entertainment Network plans to use Microsoft DRM to protect its TV shows and movies, making it a pretty good bet that OS X users will not be able to play purchased or rented media on their computers without using Windows.

BitTorrent has not released much in the way of specifics as to which DRM flavor they'll be using, but I'm guessing it's something along the same lines as the DRM used by the new Walmart service. BitTorrent will offer movies from Fox, Paramount, Warner, and MGM.

Update: Fixed the inline link from bittorent to bittorrent. Thanks everyone who pointed out the error.

Update 2: From the site: "There are clients available for Windows, Mac, and Linux, but purchased or rented content will only work on Windows at this time."

Update 3: No portable media: "We do not permit transfer or download to portable devices such as iPods, Zunes, PlayStation Portables, or similar devices at this time."