Apple drops DRM copy protection from millions of iTunes songs

The millions of songs available for download from Apple will no longer be tied only to iPods and customers will be able to transfer their tracks freely.
Apple today announced that its entire iTunes music catalogue will soon be available without any copy protection, after agreeing a new deal with the world's major record labels.
The move means customers will soon be able to buy songs via iTunes – the world's dominant digital music retailer – without being locked into using an iPod.
Music fans will be able to buy tracks without digital rights management (DRM) from iTunes and easily transfer them between computers, many different brands of music player or even onto their mobile phones.
Later this year, Apple said, the company will add a further 8m new unprotected tracks to iTunes, and shortly afterwards expects its entire library to follow suit.
"By the end of the quarter all 10 million songs will be DRM free in iTunes and iTunes plus," said Phil Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of worldwide product marketing.
DRM was originally designed to prevent downloaders from sharing files illegally, but it has become a divisive issue.


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Apple drops copy protection from iTunes | Technology | guardian.co.uk

 

Hmm they failed to point out that all the songs are going up by about 30%, oh and to get your current library updated to DRM free, that's 30% of every album you've already bought added onto it there. Congratulations Apple, iTunes is no longer yours, it belongs to the record labels who cried about this for months on end and got what they wanted.

Funniest thing about the expo was the new 17" MBP. £1,900 for something that you could build yourself and be 4 times more powerful.

Also Apple should be ashamed of themselves, unveiling something like this at that price just after Christmas when the global economy is in meltdown. Definitive proof that gullible * out there are willing to pay for a name rather than the item itself.

 

it'll also cost 20p a song or 30p an album to get the DRM taken off any songs you already own from itunes.