Sony Announces DRM-Free Music at Amazon 293
sehlat brings us a New York Times report that Sony has agreed to start selling DRM-free music from Amazon's MP3 store. This comes days after Sony revealed plans for physical MusicPass cards that would allow DRM-free access to a small portion of Sony's library. Now that all four major record labels are on board with Amazon, some are expecting Apple to make moves away from DRM as well. From the NYTimes:
"Sony's partnership with Amazon.com also underscores the music industry's gathering effort to nurture an online rival to Apple, which has sold more than three billion songs through its iTunes store. Most music purchased on iTunes can be played only on Apple devices, and Apple insists on selling all single tracks for 99 cents. Amazon, which sells tracks for anywhere from 89 cents to over a dollar, offers the pricing variability the labels want."
Satan just called... (Score:4, Funny)
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Free market (Score:5, Insightful)
It didn't take dismantling of the RIAA, court-ordered cessation of their ridiculous lawsuits, or legislative intervention to protect the consumer - it took your disillusionment with the industry and unwillingness to part with hard-earned cash to pay for crippled formats and less freedom with the content you purchased.
The next step will be the determining factor in the future of media sales. Will you buy MP3s, unrestricted, for a reasonable price? Or will you continue to download it for free via Limewire?
Option A will reinforce a reasonable business model that will benefit the industry, the artist, and you.
Option B will reverse the progress that has been made.
Choose wisely, Indiana Jones...
It also took Apple (Score:4, Insightful)
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Free market my ass.
Re:It also took Apple (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple is not a saint by any stretch, but I think your analysis is way off. Rather than arrogant they were smart enough to create a market the way consumers wanted it to be and they tried hard to protect that market from disastrous media company meddling. Now the media companies are once again trying to screw up the digital market by excluding the one partner who made the market viable. I don't think Jobs is perfect, but he's a hell of a lot smarter than the media rubes and he'll have an answer for them. I for one howpe the rumor of Apple creating its own record label is true. They need to shake up big media's control and corrupt business practices.
As for the Amazon thing. I welcome any DRM free tracks. That's a positive step. But beware of the media companies motives. If they manage to break Apple I have no doubt that DRM will be back in a big way because the RIAA does not care about consumer needs one bit.
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Exactly. This is why they are abandoning DRM. They realized that the only successful DRM gave Apple the power to force them into a particular pricing model. They'd rather give up on DRM than see that happen.
Re:Free market (Score:4, Insightful)
But some will believe that music isn't worth their money, but is worth the effort to torrent. they will claim that they are just not willing to reward the awful quality of music with their money, rather than complaining about money.
Or, of ocurse, they will claim that the formats you can buy just aren't good enough. They will want lossless.
But, like you say, if sales of music don't pick up, and piracy doesn't decline, some in the industry will exclaim that DRM must return. Not sure that this affects the pirates very much.
Pirates: at least remove all the tags, etc, so it's not too obvious that files you share came from DRM-free stores.
Re:Free market (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Free market (Score:5, Informative)
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maybe my next car will have an MP3 player, but I dont want to bother spending any money upgrading my current one
One of the selling points for my car was that lousy factory stereo would play mp3s. It's not digital storage -- you just burn data CDs filled with mp3s sorted by directory -- but 700 megs is a lot of music with mp3s. More then enough for most of my car rides, plus you can always burn more CDs if you need to :)
I'm surprised this isn't standard equipment nowadays. My Car [suzukiauto.com] is anything but high-end and it came with it.....
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I use it exclusively for my Zune *ducks*, which I fill with subscription DRM tracks from the Zunepass service *ducks again*.
I'm not sure if you are joking or not, but in all seriousness, I'd rather have the stereo that plays mp3s from data CDs then an external unit like a Zune or Ipod.
In fact the various iPod docking stations out there would drive me absolutely nuts if I had one in my car. Who the hell was the moron that came up with the idea of putting a bright blue led on a device used in automobiles that are presumably driven at night? Besides white, is there a worse possible color choice for this application? Couldn't
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RIAA music isn't worth the money (maybe make it a dime and I'll buy it) nor is it worth the effort to torrent. I'll rip my MP3s from indie CDs, and if I want any RIAA MP3s I'll sample them off the damned radio, way less hassle than either legal or illicit internet downloads.
And the formats aren't good enough. I buy lossless music on CD, vinyl, and cassette. And download lossless indie files from archive.org. Here [archive.org] are some files from some old friends of mine [kuro5hin.org] in SHN. FOLAC, MP3 and
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Re:Free market (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Amazon has more attractive prices (generally $8 for a CD)
2) It's in MP3. I think non-DRM's AAC files are fine, but MP3's are more desirable.
3) Amazon just downloads the stuff to your hard drive. It feels just like a purchase.
All that said, CD's are more desirable, and if purchased used are a better value (they can be legally resold). But the Amazon model is the first electronic system to be interesting enough for me to pay money for it.
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what do you think iTunes does? it also just downloads the stuff to your hard drive.
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Whuh? Why would you prefer MP3 over AAC? Are you still using a Diamond Rio or something?
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The only reason more people can't pay them is because they tried to play WMA's more figureing on MSFT to win the DRM war.
Apple doesn't mind losing this part. as more iPods can be sold.
Re:Free market (Score:5, Informative)
Bob[Bob] wrote and included with a post:
The main reason I can think of for preferring MP3 over AAC: Just about every compressed audio player will play MP3 files. Although the number of players that will play AAC file is increasing, it will be a long time before it will approach the number that can play MP3.
I have many devices that will play compressed audio files (including my computer). All will play MP3, five will play WMA, two will play AAC, and two will play ATRAC.
One of the main advantages AAC has over MP3 is better sound quality at a lower bitrate. For me, encoding my MP3 files at a 192 bitrate gives me good sound quality, and I don't mind the extra space it take to store the files. I might save space using AAC but the files will only play on a limited number of devices.
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Why would you prefer MP3 over AAC? Are you still using a Diamond Rio or something?
I don't listen to country [wikipedia.org]. The point is that a lot of portable players can play MP3, WMA, and nothing else. Apple iPod players can play AAC without DRM, and many that also play MPEG-4 ASP or H.264 video can, but others cannot. This is due to both a limited silicon budget for decoders and a limited patent royalty budget for decoders.
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2) Some think AACs sound a little better, and are therefore more desireable... though at least Amazon offers MP3's in a bitrate high enough to be pleased with.
3) iTunes purchases show up as "purchased music". So it feels quite a lot like a purchase - and I think it goes without saying that it downloads to your hard drive as well... And if you use iTunes for music, Amazons purchasing tool is a little less convenient (though not mu
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I'll continue to download the albums, listen to them and then either buy the CD (if I liked the album) or delete what I downloaded (if I didn't).
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When I heard Santana had a new album out (Supernatural, 1999) I went to CD Now! to have a listen. They then (and probably still do) had short twenty second clips of songs.
The more clips I heard the more disappointed I was. The Abraxas album blew me away when I got it way back when dirt was
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Reasonable pricing (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, but remember that the definition of "reasonable" is that the price is something both seller and buyer will agree on.
Until the current pricing has proven to actually be reasonable, nobody knows if we're there yet. The "reasonable" price for a song could very well be $0.01 per song, and then the current uncrippling of extremely over-priced songs wouldn't prove anything.
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You have to keep in mind that enormous numbers of songs have been downloaded, at low quality, illegally, for free. This indicates that the songs being sold are over-priced.
Calling piracy "fake demand" and discussing what's "fair" or not doesn't help; piracy is here for real, and it's massive, so that's what the music industry has to compete with. To be able to make money
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I'm not sure that I agree on this. Yes, major labels selling DRM-free music is probably a reasonable business model. But I'm not convinced that Option B is the regression you make it out to be. There is other progress to be made as well. DRM-free music solves a number of problems related to the restrictions on using your music. It doesn't address
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They shouldn't be rewarded because they became less evil, they should be punished for what they've done. If your dog pees on the carpet, a rolled up newspaper will do. If he fetches your slippers reward him. If he bites you, take him to the vet and have him put d
Re:Free market (Score:5, Insightful)
As for choosing wisely lest we lose progress, What Progress? Copyright still lasts for an Unconstitutionally long time (which is effectively unlimited), and artists are still be badly exploited by massive corporations. There is no progress to be lost, except the continued erosion of sales of music owned by the big cartel. The decline of their revenue is the REAL progress. Once the power of big media is eroded to the point of making re-regulating media and telecommunications in a reasonable way, then we will have made a grand achievement.
Re:Free market (Score:4, Insightful)
I think it is a good move on Sony's part to release DRM-free music. But it is too soon to start buying their stuff. They are still Sony. Don't forget the Blu-Ray DRM. With the region codes they intend to spring if they win the format war. And don't forget the rootkit fiasco. As I understand it, Sony continues to plant trojans on their CDs, they just don't contain rootkits anymore. Yes, definitely too soon.
Past Time (Score:2)
No, they are Sony Music. Big difference.
Don't forget the Blu-Ray DRM. With the region codes they intend to spring if they win the format war.
What? Why? That's not even under Sony's control, that's part of the Blu-Ray spec that a lot of companies developed. Heck, even HD-DVD uses the same DRM and SOny had nothing to do with that. And you are only SUPPOSING they plan to
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Hardly.
These are not Free Market Goods but rather goods protected by government granted monopolies...
Plus, this is not as a result of customer anything in my book, but rather an attempt by the music companies to take back the control over the business they gave to Apple by mistake. (Without realizi
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Naturally; I've been doing it for years from the likes of Magnatune and eMusic.
There's one big problem though... Amazon.com won't let me, and Amazon.ca doesn't have any. 100% idiotic, especially since I can buy CDs from Amazon.com no problem and rip them myself.
I prefer buying CDs (album art, and a physical backup for when my hard drive kills itself), but some things are out of print and/or insanely hard to find. And the major labels don't generally
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1. Sony is evil, I will not buy from Sony.
2. I'll rip my own MP3s from the CDs I buy from the indie bands I patronise
3. They're still suing their customers, I cannot in good consciense buy anything from an RIAA label. Suing your customers is the best way there is to go out of busines, and go out of business is exactly what all RIAA labels should do.
Nope, I still ain't buyin' RIAA music. Especially from those rootkit infested bastards at Sony.
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I'm still waiting for the price to become reasonable.
I have no problem with paying for music but charging somewhere around $10 USD for an album in lossy mp3 format with non-transferable ownership is not what I consider reasonable. [Maybe for flac. Maybe.] Considering that the cost of production is as close to zero as you can get with this distribution model there's no reason for those kinds of prices. When mp3 downloads are around $5 for an album I
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Tracks are encoded at 256kbps, include album artwork, and the albums are substantially less than the MSRP of the corresponding physical item.
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Hey Sony! How About DRM-Free iTunes? (Score:2)
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Re:There's Already DRM-Free Music At Amazon.... (Score:5, Informative)
In other words, if you don't see the sanctioned logo [google.com] on front or back of the case on the actual paper inserts, odds are you have a DRM-laden disc.
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For some odd reason, it seems putting a 12cm shiny polycarbonate disc in a suitably sized box, printing an insert and having record stores put it with all the other 12cm shiny discs was enough to ensure customers didn't get confused at the lack of the logo.
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For instance, the dualdisc format (CD on one side and DVD on the other) cannot use the CD logo on it, but plays in most CD players The reason is that the CD side of the disc is thinner than the standard specifies. Additionally, I think the CDs are slightly thicker than standard CDs, so they might not play on all slo
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Well, yes, okay... I understand that. I cannot take the risk, however. The CD Logo guarantees me that I can safely rip it. When I buy a CD, I rip once, and then it goes to the basement. I live in a small apartment, space comes at a premium. It really isn't for pirating, it just is to be able to listen to it on my computer or my iPod enabled stereo.
I have no way of knowing if a CD has the logo, even if it's just a data disk with extra artwork and pre-ripped MP3s for my convenience. For all I know, it
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Umm, you apparently don't know much about "Compact discs" as many such discs HAVE DRM (Sony rootkit, anyone?)
That's not quite the same thing. The music on the CD is encoded without DRM. The CDDA format does not allow DRM. Many music manufacturers add trojans (such as Sony's rootkit) to the CD, which is similar, but not quite the same thing. A Linux user won't notice the trojan. A Mac user won't notice the trojan. Someone who puts the CD into a standalone player won't notice the trojan. Someone who uses Windows, and has patched their registry to fix the Autoplay security bug won't notice the trojan. OTOH, perhaps
Apple will drop DRM when the labels allow them (Score:2, Informative)
Apple would love to "make moves away from DRM." [apple.com] Obviously they will do this as soon as the RIAA-signatory record companies make the DRM-free music available to them. The DRM is not central to Apple's business but is something the record companies forced on them to make the initial deals that created itunes.
After Jobs released the memo linked above, EMI made DRM-free music available to Apple, and Apple immediately started selling it DRM-free. Of
US only (Score:5, Insightful)
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For example, a given Sony Music track might be owned by Sony Music America in the USA but may be owned by Sony Music Australia in australia.
In some cases its totally different companies that own the rights in different countries.
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That's alright - US users can just put it on eMule for us.
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I've seen a fair few albums available as MP3's on amazon.com that I'd have loved to have bought on impulse (which is how I buy most of my music these days, usually going by samples/recommendations from LastFM or friends IMing me tracks) and haven't been able to, and I still
DRM killed itself. (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple has more or less a stranglehold now on the market, and the labels demanding DRM on their music help Apple maintaining this stranglehold, and block e.g. Amazon from selling music that plays on the iPod. After all, when they must use DRM, they can not use Apple's DRM, and thus the market for Amazon and the rest is limited to the non-iPod market. And that market of course is small, and no serious competition for Apple.
The only way out for the labels, the only way to break Apple's hold including the demands of one price for all songs, is to drop the DRM requirement. And finally they do so - it started of course with some iTunes-plus songs, and then one after another the labels realised that they themselves are locked in by DRM as much, if not more so, than the consumers. Even "rootkit" Sony BMG apparently finally realised that.
Now the only thing I can hope for is some real competition. US$ 0.99 (HK$ 7.7) for a single song is imho way too expensive. For that price I can buy complete movies (legal, mind you - old ones, but still, a complete movie, on VCD, sometimes go for HK$10 for two). A new movie on VCD costs here HK$ 40-50, a DVD costs about HK$ 90-120, a music CD costs HK$ 70-100 for local artists and HK$ 110-150 for overseas artists. This for legal copies, not the cheap illegal import from China.
So now finally the labels have cut the DRM from the songs, allowing Amazon and presumably soon other vendors, maybe Microsoft or Yahoo, to sell songs without DRM. Amazon is now selling a lot at prices lower than iTunes, this will likely attract customers away from iTunes. iTunes is getting competition, and may be forced to lower their prices. iTunes may also decide to give up on their DRM, the lock-in is broken up by the supply side and there is no need for them to put on the DRM. After all adding DRM costs money: it takes computer cycles, requiring more computer power; it requires extra logic on their chips or software in the iPods, etc. DRM less media is cheaper, even if only marginally so.
So will Apple give up on their DRM? Sure. I'm really sure they will. Maybe not anytime soon, but as soon as Amazon et. al. get some traction, they will. As soon as there comes a real competitor to the iPod, they will do as well just to keep there store going.
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Does iTunes' present contract allow them to lower the prices?
Does iTunes' present contract allow them to drop the DRM?
all the best,
drew
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Incase the joke is missed, iPods play mp3s
In other news... (Score:2, Funny)
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This is anti-competitive (Score:2, Insightful)
What the record companies are attempting to do here is break iTunes' monopoly on music downloads. They see the way to do this as supplying another retailer with a superior product (ie. DRM-free music) whist still insisting that iTunes sells DRM'ed tracks. They are then hoping that people will move over to Amazon's system, killing iTunes,
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Yes. It locks iTunes to the iPod, and so they mutually support each other giving apple the monopoly. Speaking out against it didn't mean Jobs didn't like it. Just that he realised that if Apple didn't allow DRM free music on iTunes, it would mean competitors would be able to offer a better product. Apple had to make a concession here.
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I certainly do. Having DRM directly benefits Apple. You're locked into the iPod. If your iPod dies and you've bought a ton of music from the iTMS and you're faced burning it all to CD and re-riping it then, likely, having to import all of your music into some Media Library Management software that is compatible with a new MP3 player wha
Redundant by design (Score:4, Funny)
Sony - FUD. Redundant by design.
DRM free but still too much (Score:2, Insightful)
Economist Article (Score:5, Interesting)
Quote:
IN 2006 EMI, the world's fourth-biggest recorded-music company, invited some teenagers into its headquarters in London to talk to its top managers about their listening habits. At the end of the session the EMI bosses thanked them for their comments and told them to help themselves to a big pile of CDs sitting on a table. But none of the teens took any of the CDs, even though they were free. "That was the moment we realised the game was completely up," says a person who was there.
What about Kindle? (Score:2)
Sony/BMG have shown their colors with the rootkit (Score:4, Insightful)
They will never have my business again. They proved themselves untrustworthy and only fools ask to be taken twice.
Excellent! (Score:2)
Prices (Score:2)
This is the key, I think. The labels want to play Amazon and Apple off eachother in order to push prices up.
Is it just me, or does Sony NOT get DIGITAL DISTRO (Score:2)
Why not just buy the fucking CD at that point?
Two words (Score:3)
I've tried to purchase a track at Amazon already two weeks ago. I was turned down. They only sell to buyers located in North America.
S3 mp3 storage (Score:3, Interesting)
Now you have a backup of all your purchased music at no charge, which you can download at any time at standard S3 download rates. And, of course, you can feel free to use that S3 account for other purposes if you like. But there's no monthly fee for storing the mp3s since Amazon only needs to keep a single copy of each song for all users.
Re:Go fuck yourselves (Score:4, Funny)
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The fish and chips are cool, but I'll never forgive you for the Spice Girls and Duran Duran.
Re:Go fuck yourselves (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Apple already did with EMI - They were first! (Score:5, Interesting)
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It takes time to make songs available on an online store. Amazon currently has RIGHTS to sell more DRM-free songs than Apple, but Apple's been loading EMI DRM-free songs and DRM-free songs from independents for almost twice as long as the Amazon store has existed. The figure I've seen is that they have about 2 million DRM-free tracks (out of the 6 million total they have). That's about the same size
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Re: Rant about State of the Industry (Score:3, Interesting)
What you're describing is a market opportunity for labor. As I understand your post, once the majority of small labels are signed, you'll be content. This becomes a When-Not-If scenario. My projection is three years if a dedicated negotiating force buckles down with no more white noise inter
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Not Apple's delay (Score:2)
Incorrect, it's up to the label to allow this. SO far no label but EMI has (and some independents).
Re:Amazon is selling cross platform. (Score:3, Insightful)
True, but Amaxon is selling tracks in the universal format. Apple is not. Tracks from Amazon will play in by son's iPod, my daughter's Creative Zen, my Coby MP3 player, and in my living room DVD player. Itunes tracks on the other hand will play on my Son's Ipod and a couple computers and nowhere else. The choice of music vendors is simply a matter of compatibility for many. DRM is a compatibility issue. So is formats other
Re:Apple already did with EMI - They were first! (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally I'm of the mind that iTunes tracks have always been DRM free though, since you are allowed to burn them to CD. If you just want to use the iPod alone, there's no need. This in built burn to cd option hasn't been the case for other DRM schemes that I know of.
Try as I might, I can't hear any difference to a track I've burned to CD and encoded as mp3. Aac has its advantages (aside from the drm everyone mutters about), I do like the bookmark feature.
Re:Apple already did with EMI - They were first! (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry, but that's nonsense. The fact that it is possible to burn to an inconvenient physical format an then rip to a DRM free format does not make iTunes DRM free. There is an inevitable loss of quality in this time-consuming process. I cannot play the original file on anything but iTunes or an iPod. That is DRM and it does not equate to consumer choice. Happily, Apple will now be forced to get rid of DRM - in the US, at least.
I have no problem with AAC - it's a good format and it can be played by Rockbox, but the DRM is not acceptable. I will never buy restricted media.
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Personally I'm of the mind that iTunes tracks have always been DRM free though, since you are allowed to burn them to CD.
Sorry, but that's nonsense. The fact that it is possible to burn to an inconvenient physical format an then rip to a DRM free format does not make iTunes DRM free. There is an inevitable loss of quality in this time-consuming process.
Sorry, but the sound from the "original" file and that of the riped CD are exactly the same, and turning that into a lossless format is in fact also lossless (compared to the original download at least) - and I doubt that the loss with converting it to a high-bit-rate format will be notable.
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Personally I'm of the mind that iTunes tracks have always been DRM free though, since you are allowed to burn them to CD.
Sorry, but that's nonsense. The fact that it is possible to burn to an inconvenient physical format an then rip to a DRM free format does not make iTunes DRM free. There is an inevitable loss of quality in this time-consuming process.
Sorry, but the sound from the "original" file and that of the riped CD are exactly the same, and turning that into a lossless format is in fact also lossless (compared to the original download at least) - and I doubt that the loss with converting it to a high-bit-rate format will be notable.
A typical losslessly compressed file is around 700-800 kbps. 128 kbps CBR quality (iTunes DRM) at 700 kbps files sizes sounds like a shitty option to me.
Which has jack-shit to do DRM. Thanks for playing.
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And
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There is no difference whatsoever between a ripped mp3 file from iTunes, and a ripped mp3 from an album. I know, I've tried it. Same goes for Audible actually, but I didn't mention that because it's not music.
The purpose of DRM is to restrict what you can do with the music, but iTunes have never tried to restrict what you do with the music once you own it, just the original f
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"darn silly?" Monty Python is darn silly. Sony's rootkits are God damned burn-in-hell evil.
Re:Apple already did with EMI - They were first! (Score:5, Informative)
That's not true. emusic.com was doing this years before iTunes.
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There was a number of online stores with DRM-free catalogs prior to Apple's involvement, and the DRM removal on iTunes was at the request of EMI, not the other way around.
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Where are you getting that information? Usually from an outsider's perpective it's impossible to understand how high-level corporate negotiations work, but the chronology was that Steve wrote a letter calling for DRM to be abolished first, then EMI's songs were sold DRM-free starting some time after that. It seems like if EMI were doing it on their own initiative, they would have made the announcement and claimed the credit, not letting Jobs pre-empt them
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