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iTunes Music Store going DRM-free

Macworld keynote announcements also include price changes and 3G downloads available for iPhone.

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Mobile, Computing | by Barb Dybwad | Tue Jan 6, 2009 1:54PM | 2 comments

Good news from today's Macworld Expo keynote: the iTunes Music Store is finally going DRM-free. You'll no longer be locked into the madness of digital right management when downloading tracks from the store by the end of this quarter — right now 8 of the 10 million songs are available without DRM, with the remainder of the tracks ditching the DRM by the end of March.

With tracks reportedly available at higher quality as well, Apple's Senior VP of Product Marketing Phil Schiller also announced new pricing tiers for downloads: $0.69, $0.99, or $1.29. The final update to the iTunes family included the news that the iTunes WiFi Music Store accessible from the iPhone is now simply the same iTunes Music Store accessible from your computer, with high-speed 3G access to the service available from iPhone 3Gs. The new service is reportedly available today — let us know in the comments if you're as psyched as we are about the disappearance of DRM from the iTMS, OK?

This story around the web:

Trusted sources:
external link iTunes Store Goes DRM Free [AppleInsider]
external link Macworld 2009: Apple's iTunes goes DRMfree [Telegraph Connected]
external link Macworld Guessing: iPhone Tethering, iTunes… [Yahoo! News: Technology News]

Get more information on topics relating to this story:


Related company news:
Apple
Related glossary terms:
3G, DRM, iTunes Store (iTMS)
Related brand news:
Apple iPhone
Related devices and services:
Apple iPhone 3G, Apple iTunes
Related event news:
Macworld 2009

Comments (2)

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Jake Tripp external link (1:42 PM on Tue Jan 6, 2009)

What becomes of previously downloaded DRM-ed songs? Do new versions of iTunes ignore old DRMs? Or is it just DRM-free going forward?

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Ally duan external link (3:19 AM on Wed Jan 7, 2009)

Really good news. DRM free for all iTunes music.
I often used wondershare streaming Video Recorder to download DRM music,videos here.

http://www.flash-on-tv.com/streaming-video-recorder.html#124

Now it is no use for all music.

How about DRM Videos, DRM movies, and DRM TV shows? When we get free DRM of them.

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Anonymous (10:16 AM on Tue Feb 9, 2010)

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