Pirogoeth's Journal: [POLL] DRM-Free music

So, EMI becomes the first major label to make the DRM-free jump. Personally, while I see it as a good thing from different angles (customer: music can be played on any software/player, reseller: Apple makes more money because people will come to them to buy DRM-free tunes, supplier: EMI makes more money from the higher per-song price, artists: still get screwed) I don't see it as jumping for joy news. I'm not much of an audiophile, so the higher quality would probably be lost on me, and I drank the Apple kool-ade years ago, so I'll be using iTunes/iPods forever so the presence of the DRM doesn't really impact me..

Question(s):

1: If you buy music through iTMS, will you spend the extra $$$ for the higher-quality DRM-free versions?

2: Will you spend the $$$ to take up the offer to "upgrade" any existing music you have previously downloaded?

3: How long will it be until major label #2 makes a similar announcement?

Hate iTunes

[robi2106]

I hate the software and all its control over the iPod so I never did use it other than to sync with the nano. I never purchased any music and probably won't. The only new music I am interested in is Wierd Al's Straight Outta Lynwood but I would rather buy it from his site as a CD so I can rip it at my bitrate and so I have a physical disc to fall back on.

jason

Space

[ryanr]

So, will Apple also be advertising that their iPods now hold half as much?

I don't think I can hear any better than the 128AAC anyway, so I'm not that interested in the 256. I would like it if the DRM were just off, but no I don't think it's worth the extra money. I guess I'll continue to cut CDs and rip back to MP3 (I haven't had much time for the reverse engineering project to break the crypto directly.)

I could maybe see buying one or two of the more expensive ones, if I were feeling too lazy to cut a CD a

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:

[ryanr]

I don't think I've have AAC files that didn't have Fairplay on them before.

Re:

[jawtheshark]

QTFairUse [wikipedia.org]... I *used* to have AAC files with FairPlay.

Anything you rip from CD will be without FairPlay. Not that I do that, I rip to MP3. As for AAC files that have no FairPlay, you can convert to MP3 (transcode) with a right-click in iTunes.

Re:

[jawtheshark]

As for the questions in the JE:

1. Yes, I will.... Just to support it.

2. If I find out which iTunes tracks that I bought were by EMI, I'll upgrade them all. Thing is: it's not easy to find out. I still have the backups of my FairPlay enabled tracks, yes....

3. Good question.... I hope very fast.

I don't steal music, but I want to be able to easily transport music from one computer to another without having to get the seal of approval from Apple.

Re:

[ryanr]

I could get some unprotected AAC files. In fact, I believe I now have some, via Multiply. But if I'm going to the trouble of cutting a CD, the songs are going straight to MP3.

Yes, Yes, Not Long

[Oculus Habent]

I've been buying from iTunes for a while, the benefit of 256kbps and DRM-free will be nice. I will probably upgrade my existing music, albeit slowly. I wonder if the upgrade price has album considerations...