Poll: If EMI drops Digital Rights Manangement from their songs... How does that affect your music buying?

[MacRumors]

Vote: Poll: If EMI drops Digital Rights Manangement from their songs... How does that affect your music buying? (http://www.macpolls.com/?poll_id=534)

[JNB]

DRM - although the spawn of the most insanely stupid and avaricious people to hold power since Jack Valenti, has not affected me personally, nor do I believe it ever would have in it's current form.

Nonetheless, I am looking to regain the entire Beatles catalog - with or without DRM.

[EricNau]

I already buy all of my music from iTunes, but I suppose I might buy a little more if DRM was removed.

[dornoforpyros]

Although I see this as a positive step forward I can't say it will effect my purchases that much. The albums I buy on CD anymore are what I can't find on iTunes, and usually it's just the really indie stuff, although iTunes is getting much better.

[averyash]

I am looking forward to supporting what is an extremely consmer friendly act by EMI by purchacing EMI music... and taking a stance to not purchace music that is DRM protected.

[siurpeeman]

i already buy from the itunes store, so removing drm won't change my buying any. the only thing i really want from the itunes store is to be able to buy music from other itunes stores, particularly the japanese one.

[synth3tik]

I move Macs around a lot. I personally hate remembering to deauthorize an old computer everytime I get a new one.

[Multimedia]

I'd rather have a master CD of AIFF files than any of the download versions.

[nagromme]

I pretty much buy what I want regardless--the DRM does not hamper my use of the music.

But on principle, I would make a little extra effort to find DRM-less music to buy on iTunes, and thus support the decision.

I wonder, with some DRM and some non-DRM songs on iTunes, if that will add another level of complexity to the shopping experience. I know Apple doesn't like the mix of rules found with other online stores. Hopefully they can find a good way to handle this, if it happens.

[EricNau]

I wonder, with some DRM and some non-DRM songs on iTunes, if that will add another level of complexity to the shopping experience. I know Apple doesn't like the mix of rules found with other online stores. Hopefully they can find a good way to handle this, if it happens.
I'm guessing, with the exception of a little marker somewhere on the page saying "DRM free" or "protected," that Apple wouldn't change a thing, and the average customer wouldn't notice a difference.

[Finiksa]

I've never bought any music from iTunes (or any other on-line store) because of the DRM. I've even had $20 credit sitting unused on my iTunes account for the past year, If DRM is removed I'll happily spend it and more.

[Aniej]

not one bit. I like iTunes and find it useful and easy to use when I want to make a quick online purchase of a single song.

[mantic]

the reason i've stayed away is because .. When I purchase something.. I expect it to be mine to use as i want whenever i want as many times as i want etc.. It's music it's not a gun.. Who are you to regulate and restrict the manner in which I use it after i've purchased it?

[hollerz]

Probably wouldn't make me buy MORE, but would make me much happier. At the minute, I can't do things like stream protected content to my Xbox 360 etc.

[Makosuke]

In general I'll take CDs if I can easily get them, since no-DRM and rippable at the quality I choose is nice, but I already buy from iTMS when it's more convienent, or I only want one or two songs (which is more often than I want the whole album, actually).

That said, if ANY of the labels on the iTMS were to drop their DRM, I would intentionally lean in favor of them unless I desperately wanted a song off another label. If EVERYBODY has DRM, I can accept it, but once somebody has the consumer-friendliness to ditch it, I'm getting on their boat.

That's why I'd be an eMusic customer (unprotected high-bitrate MP3) if their material wasn't stuff I was totally uninterested in and you didn't need to buy a subscritpion.

[rdas7]

I doubt that "removing DRM" is going to be equivalent to just selling completely unmarked files.

My guess is that the files will still have the DRM layer, but the restrictions will be set to 'none', so you'll effectively be able to playback your m4p files on any number of devices (that support FairPlay), like your friend's computer, or neighbors AppleTV, but the files will still be tagged with your account details (ie. so you're still encouraged to be responsible with the files you buy, and not post everything on bit torrent).

Following the announcement of something like this, people will wail about how unfair Apple is, and how much they suck. Several months later, Steve Jobs will show a Keynote slide captioned "****" detailing how iTunes has now gained 99.99% market share. Boom.

[miniConvert]

I'd buy vastly more songs, knowing that they'll play on a greater range of devices and that there's far less chance they'll become obselete in the future.

Seriously, I'd probably never buy another physical album again if I could download the music, legitimately, without crippling DRM.

My iTunes purchasing would probably increase 10x.

[macFanDave]

"Affect" is a verb. "Effect" is a noun.

The choice I voted for should have read "No effect . . ."

FairPlay DRM has never gotten in my way so I really don't care much about DRM from a personal perspective. But, I can see how the topic affects others, so it is neat to see Apple involved in such a bold step on the side of the consumer.

[zv470]

I hope EMI drops DRM on their hard copy albums. There is a lot of music I really really want to buy that is signed to EMI... but I won't because they have DRM.

[jayb2000]

I'd rather have a master CD of AIFF files than any of the download versions.

Yup.
I agree, plus I have a backup that way.