Apple kills DRM on iTunes Store purchases!

[Newby]

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2337929,00.asp

Hooray! Sudden outbreak of common sense!

[BigAznDaddy]

woooop
Wait I thought you never used/ hated itunes? Is having a mac changing your view on PC's??!?!

[Warrior]

Good. Silly that they charge to strip DRM.

Ps: lolapple

[Warrior]

The Zune Marketplace and other music retailers and subscription services probably saw today's announcement and thought: "Uh oh, the party's over."

Except that prior to this announcement, the Zune Marketplace was 90% DRM Free (as of Zune 3.0) with the most lax subscription service DRM of any player. Granted they have less songs, but it's still something. Prior to this, Apple had the half-hearted offering of DRM Free tracks at a premium (iTunes Plus).

That aside, this is a monumental step forward in destroying DRM. Read between the lines though, they only got this because they allowed the Music Industry to jack up prices on MP3's at their own discretion.

[Sidoh]

That's glorious news!

[Newby]

I'd just like to point out my friend tried purchasing a song just now, and it was in .m4p format (protected .m4a) and that he was unable to create an MP3 version of the song straight from iTunes, because "protected songs cannot be converted to other formats."

:|

[Warrior]

It's probably just under a lot of stress / not fully ready yet.

[Sidoh]

It's probably just under a lot of stress / not fully ready yet.

That'd be my guess too.

[MyndFyre]

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2337929,00.asp

Hooray! Sudden outbreak of common sense!

I would not be surprised if iTunes-purchased songs are watermarked.  In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the ones from Amazon are, too.

Anyone know about this?

[Warrior]

iTunes DRM'd songs are watermarked. I remember a huge fuss about it a while ago.

[Explicit]

I'd just like to point out my friend tried purchasing a song just now, and it was in .m4p format (protected .m4a) and that he was unable to create an MP3 version of the song straight from iTunes, because "protected songs cannot be converted to other formats."

:|

I had to download a third-party application (noteburner) in order to convert from .m4p to .mp3. It creates a virtual device that mounts the image as an audio CD (i.e. from the burning feature in iTunes) in order to rip it.

[MyndFyre]

iTunes DRM'd songs are watermarked. I remember a huge fuss about it a while ago.

What about non-DRM songs?  Is there a way to check?

[Joe]

Would you think twice about lending a favorite book to a close friend? Of course not, and sharing music shouldn't be any different—and with DRM-free files, you don't even have to worry about whether your friend will return it. [...]

Eliminating DRM is just another example of Apple doing what Apple does best: making life easier for the consumer. The question isn't: "Why did they take so long?" It's: "Why did DRM ever exist in the first place?"

[...] Kudos to Apple—and yes, even the Big Four—for finally coming to their senses and actually trusting the consumer.

Kudos to the Big Four for finally giving up and realizing that TFA says we're going to immediately hand off songs to friends?

Kudos to Apple for making it easier for the customer to steal music, as if we couldn't do it before?

Don't get me wrong, less hacking my behalf makes me a happy man, but TFA seems to be written by people who praise music-stealing.

[iago]

Kudos to the Big Four for finally giving up and realizing that TFA says we're going to immediately hand off songs to friends?

Kudos to Apple for making it easier for the customer to steal music, as if we couldn't do it before?

Don't get me wrong, less hacking my behalf makes me a happy man, but TFA seems to be written by people who praise music-stealing.

Making illegal copies of music isn't stealing, nor is it pirating. It's copyright infringement. At least use the proper terms and not the media's rigged ones.

[Camel]

Making illegal copies of music isn't stealing, nor is it pirating. It's copyright infringement. At least use the proper terms and not the media's rigged ones.

I think it still counts as stealing, though not in the traditional sense, and it definitely counts as pirating, since pirating specifically means copyright infringement.

[Newby]

They'll be un-DRMd by April. That's why some songs are still protected. =P

[Hitmen]

I like how they turned apple caving in to the tiered pricing model the labels have been pushing for years into a pro apple story.