DRM free music on iTunes

Vogateer · Post by **Vogateer** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 4:39 pm

Did someone else post this and I miss it?

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/04/02itunes.html

EMI is now selling tracks at a higher price—$1.29—but without DRM on iTunes. May have to actually buy some stuff now just to encourage them.

Wally Balljacker · Post by **Wally Balljacker** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 6:56 pm

Now they just need to release an iTunes client for Linux.

snarkout · Post by **snarkout** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 9:06 pm

Wally Balljacker wrote:Now they just need to release an iTunes client for Linux.

Or stop intentionally breaking our only access to the iTMS.

Vogateer · Post by **Vogateer** » Fri Apr 06, 2007 10:27 am

Yeah, this doesn't have any direct impact on us pure Linux users, and I'll still be going through Magnatune to get my music when possible, but it encourages the optimistic among us to believe that we're just a little closer to ridding ourselves of at least one form of DRM, and just maybe making way for the market to cater to Linux users, since I can't think of a way to make open source & DRM play well together. Without DRM, though, we have one less barrier to worry about.

CptnObvious999 · Post by **CptnObvious999** » Fri Apr 06, 2007 10:58 am

I think the price is a bit excessive myself. You could buy an Audio CD with the album art and everything in a lossless format that you could encode to any format you want for cheaper. I thought what they were charging for CDs was rediculous but now you have to pay more?! DRM-free or not, this is crazy and I would be surprized if even 10% of people that currently use iTunes buy the DRM-free versions. If anything this will send the message to EMI and everyone else that we don't care about DRM, thanks a lot Apple, you fucking bastards.

(sorry for the rant, I had to get that out of my system

)

Vogateer · Post by **Vogateer** » Fri Apr 06, 2007 11:21 am

You're right about that, the price is excessive, even if they're increasing the quality as well as removing the DRM, but if I had to choose between the 99 cent, poor quality restricted mp3 versus the $1.29, decent quality non-restricted mp3, I'd take the $1.29 non-restricted version. So yeah, overpriced, but I'd say no more so than it was before.

Now, Magnatune's suggested price of $8 seems perfectly reasonable to me. With EMI going forward with non-DRM music, they can a least start to seek other distributors much more easily, and hopefully competition amongst distributors would put some pressure on those inflated prices. I won't be holding my breath for that, but I still see it as a step in the right direction, nonetheless.

chuck · Post by **chuck** » Fri Apr 06, 2007 11:39 am

Vogateer wrote:You're right about that, the price is excessive, even if they're increasing the quality as well as removing the DRM, but if I had to choose between the 99 cent, poor quality restricted mp3 versus the $1.29, decent quality non-restricted mp3, I'd take the $1.29 non-restricted version. So yeah, overpriced, but I'd say no more so than it was before.

Well the question is why should you have to pay more to download the file than to purchase it on media?

And from the articles that I've read on this deal, it will be an unrestricted AAC format, not a straight MP3 file. What, if any, are the legal codec restrictions on the AAC's?

Vogateer · Post by **Vogateer** » Fri Apr 06, 2007 11:51 am

I didn't catch that. If it's AAC, then you're right, it's useless to me.

Then at best it's a very small step in the right direction, though hardly thrilling. Still, if music companies start to ditch DRM, we'll all be in better shape.

Man, it pisses me off when I try to rip a CD and find that I can't because there's some ridiculous copy prevention technique being used. Happened to me with a Sony CD recently, just reminding me how much I hate Sony and DRM.

allix · Post by **allix** » Fri Apr 06, 2007 12:00 pm

Vogateer wrote: Man, it pisses me off when I try to rip a CD and find that I can't because there's some ridiculous copy prevention technique being used. Happened to me with a Sony CD recently, just reminding me how much I hate Sony and DRM.

I was under the impression that ripping a CD on linux will just work, regardless of the Media.

Wally Balljacker · Post by **Wally Balljacker** » Fri Apr 06, 2007 1:03 pm

Linux will rip any standard audio CD, since compact discs don't have any form of copy protection. The Sony discs in question aren't actually CDs, and if you look closely, you won't see a compact disc logo. As long as you see that logo, Linux should be able to rip it just fine.

Standard CD

Sony Copy Controlled Disc

Vogateer · Post by **Vogateer** » Fri Apr 06, 2007 1:19 pm

Wally beat me to it. In fact, I think there was a suit filed that if they weren't following the red book standard, that they couldn't use the standard "Compact Disc" logo on their CDs, because it wasn't working on people's regular CD players.

So yeah, a proper CD can be ripped in Linux without a problem, a nasty Sony pseudo-CD gums up the works. I think the work-around for the Sony copy prevention disc is to simply use a black permanent marker on the outside edge of the disc, though I'll have to look it up, but it's still a nuisance.

Wally Balljacker · Post by **Wally Balljacker** » Fri Apr 06, 2007 1:32 pm

Vogateer wrote:Wally beat me to it. In fact, I think there was a suit filed that if they weren't following the red book standard, that they couldn't use the standard "Compact Disc" logo on their CDs, because it wasn't working on people's regular CD players.

So yeah, a proper CD can be ripped in Linux without a problem, a nasty Sony pseudo-CD gums up the works. I think the work-around for the Sony copy prevention disc is to simply use a black permanent marker on the outside edge of the disc, though I'll have to look it up, but it's still a nuisance.

Sony and EMI have supposedly dropped using these discs, although there are probably still alot of them floating around in stores. Atleast we're making some progress towards exterminating DRM.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copy_Control