Upgrading to iTunes DRM free

[Nonentity]

This is taking into consideration I had the iTunes Plus option turned on already, so ~15% of my albums are already the plus versions.

And this is not my home PC, this computer only has about 80% of the music.

This will not be a lump sum transaction for me.

[Samwise]

Lol, you bought stuff from the iTunes store.

[Trippy]

It's $0.30 a song or 30% of the album price to upgrade songs.

[Merusk]

Lol, you bought stuff from the iTunes store.

Hasn't everyone?

I bought stuff for Dad's funeral because I wasn't going to waste half a day hoping I could find the exact songs my mom wanted on BitTorrent, and then pray they were good rips or fully seeded. Worse still would have been trying to find them in the two independent record stores that still exist in Northern Kentucky, seeing as they cater to the College Crowd or Best Buy, who only stocks top sellers.

I've also bought songs here and there I didn't want to try and find on BitTorrent because I had a bit of spare change.  Usually they were eclectic shit I'd never find among all the crap or things I didn't mind dropping cash for.  Like Doctorin' the Tardis by the Timelords, or some of Henry Rollins' spoken word albums.

Because in the end, my free time is worth more than $.99 when compared with the time spent fucking with BitTorrent on a per-hour basis. 

[Samwise]

Lol, you bought stuff from the iTunes store.

Hasn't everyone?

Yes, including me.  That's just what I read that screenshot as.  "Ha ha, you bought our crippleware.  We'll fix it if you give us some more money.  Sucker."

[Merusk]

Ah damn, I was hoping to bust your balls a bit more.  Phhhbt.    Ah well, was all in good fun.

[Nonentity]

Yeah, I'm trying to be legit about my music purchases. I have too many musician friends these days to be pirating music in good conscience.

But yes - fuck that I have to pay extra to disable the crippleware format.

[Righ]

The only things I have bought from iTMS are things that are exclusively available there. If I can, I'll buy a CD. If I can't buy a CD, I'll try and find a the music as a legal lossless download. If that's not possible, I'll try to find it on a retailer that doesn't load DRM into the files or I'll buy it on vinyl and rip it myself. If it is only available on iTunes I'll buy it there and then head to the artist's site to browbeat them into making a physical release (thank you James Murphy).

[shiznitz]

This is taking into consideration I had the iTunes Plus option turned on already, so ~15% of my albums are already the plus versions.

And this is not my home PC, this computer only has about 80% of the music.

This will not be a lump sum transaction for me.

You bought all that music knowing it had DRM so why would you pay more to remove something you knew you were getting? Are you planning on changing your mp3 device any time soon? It is not like Apple hid the fact that all thier stuff has/had DRM on it and now they are "Surprise fuckers! You have to pay again!" You purchased something from them in good faith. They delivered what you thought you were buying. Now, they are offering to incrementally improve the product you bought for a fee.

Either the fee is worth the improvement or it isn't.

[Oban]

Higher quality mp3's with the plus upgrade too.

I like the fact that my ipod integrates with my car and is easy to use.  Being able to buy just the song I wanted instead of an album full of filler also made it an easy sell.

So sue me.

[Samwise]

You bought all that music knowing it had DRM

The part that makes them douchenozzles is that when the thing launched, all indications were that Apple's hands were completely tied, they HAD to have that DRM on there, and DRM was the price you had to pay for the convenience of digital downloads.  The fact that the DRM locked the music to Apple music players was just a happy bonus and not the real motivator, we swear.

Now it turns out -- surprise!  They apparently do have the ability to provide their stuff DRM-free after all.  And now that the iPod's position in the market is secure, they'll take the DRM off -- but they'll squeeze you for some more money first if you don't mind, kthx.

[Righ]

Apple's hands were completely tied, they HAD to have that DRM on there

That was actually the situation when Apple launched iTMS. Jobs even wrote an open letter asking the music industry to accept DRM-free music sales. Since then, CD sales have completely collapsed, falling at the rate of 20% per year. The major labels have woken up to the fact that it's actually better to sell somebody DRM-free MP3s that they can illegally share than sell them DRM-free CDs that they can rip and illegally share at a higher resolution. More importantly, its better to be selling something than nothing at all.

[Trippy]

You bought all that music knowing it had DRM

The part that makes them douchenozzles is that when the thing launched, all indications were that Apple's hands were completely tied, they HAD to have that DRM on there, and DRM was the price you had to pay for the convenience of digital downloads.  The fact that the DRM locked the music to Apple music players was just a happy bonus and not the real motivator, we swear.

Now it turns out -- surprise!  They apparently do have the ability to provide their stuff DRM-free after all.  And now that the iPod's position in the market is secure, they'll take the DRM off -- but they'll squeeze you for some more money first if you don't mind, kthx.

In the beginning it was like Righ said above and Apple really didn't have a choice. Later it became an issue about Apple wanting to keep control over pricing where the major labels wanted variable pricing in exchange for not having the DRM. E.g. Amazon has had DRM-free music downloads from the major labels for over a year now but that's cause they allowed the labels to have flexibility on pricing. When Apple caved on the pricing issue the labels allowed their tracks to be DRM-free.

[Samwise]

So is that $0.30/song going entirely to the labels, or is poor innocent Apple taking a cut?   

[Yegolev]

The point is that it's not going to the honest, hardworking, not thieving Timelords.

[Righ]

So is that $0.30/song going entirely to the labels, or is poor innocent Apple taking a cut?   

It's going to Apple. How Apple then pay that on to the record companies isn't public, but it is my guess that they've already had to pay out a lump sum to change the terms of their contracts and that that sum is based on the number of past sales. If somebody were to actually audit iTMS internally, I suspect they would find that it is technically a loss-leader. The one cent they get per song or whatever it is these days certainly doesn't pay for their servers and bandwidth. However, they're not allowed to have a loss-leader, so uh, they don't. But I'm sure that their accounting is complex. However, its fairly well known that the money they make comes from device sales, and that the music store is partly a way to gain more brand recognition, and partly a way to satisfy certain famous Apple execs desires to be cool and own a record store. Oh, and bloody the nose of Apple Corp (the Beatles' record company).