iTunes Plus Expanded, Becomes Largest DRM-Free Catalog

[MacRumors]

Apple announced today the expansion of iTunes Plus to 2 million songs including artists from Sub Pop, Nettwerk, Beggars Group, IODA, The Orchard and many others, along with EMI’s digital catalog.

The announcement comes after Apple began lowering prices of its DRM-free songs to $.99, down from $1.29. Arstechnica had reported at the time that Apple was in the midst of expanding its catalog to include indie artists as well as EMI.

Raw Data: Apple Press Release

Article Link

[mkrishnan]

Bravo, Apple! Now that there's no price premium, I have to make sure my account is set to get iTunes+ versions when possible.

[asrai]

Originally Posted by mkrishnan

Bravo, Apple! Now that there's no price premium, I have to make sure my account is set to get iTunes+ versions when possible.

K, I'll bite, where is this setting exactly? I looked around and haven't come across it.

Thanks.

[mkrishnan]

Originally Posted by asrai

K, I'll bite, where is this setting exactly? I looked around and haven't come across it.

Actually, that's a good question. I don't see it either. There used to be a setting in the accounts page that asked you whether you would like to preferentially buy iTunes+ content when you can.

However, it looks like the feature is now gone -- my account was set up to purchase the DRM versions of the songs (since few songs at the time were even available sans DRM, and having one or two no-DRM songs didn't sound that useful to me). But now, when I look up a song that is available in iTunes+ (such as this excellent song) I automatically see the "+" version only anyways.

So it looks like Apple is making this a no-brainer. (Although, of all the songs I had stewing in my shopping cart, that I was thinking about buying, only 10-15% are available in iTunes+ format).

[asrai]

Originally Posted by mkrishnan

Actually, that's a good question. I don't see it either. There used to be a setting in the accounts page that asked you whether you would like to preferentially buy iTunes+ content when you can.

However, it looks like the feature is now gone -- my account was set up to purchase the DRM versions of the songs (since few songs at the time were even available sans DRM, and having one or two no-DRM songs didn't sound that useful to me). But now, when I look up a song that is available in iTunes+ (such as this excellent song) I automatically see the "+" version only anyways.

So it looks like Apple is making this a no-brainer. (Although, of all the songs I had stewing in my shopping cart, that I was thinking about buying, only 10-15% are available in iTunes+ format).

Yeah, now that you mention it, I do remember seeing something about this when they announced the iTunes+, but now, I think you're correct, Apple has made this "option" obsolete. As it were.

Thanks for the re:

Cheers

[tallyho]

Originally Posted by mkrishnan

Bravo, Apple! Now that there's no price premium, I have to make sure my account is set to get iTunes+ versions when possible.

There's still a premium on the UK store. DRM songs=79p, iTunes plus songs=99p. There's no point complaining, but maybe one day we'll get the same price as you!

[bilbo--baggins]

Originally Posted by tallyho

There's still a premium on the UK store. DRM songs=79p, iTunes plus songs=99p. There's no point complaining, but maybe one day we'll get the same price as you!

If i search for music I know to be iTunes plus it comes up at 99p like you say. However, if you click on the iTunes Plus link on the store home, it says cannot connect, busy. I hope this means they haven't finish sorting it for the UK - it would be pretty bizzarre not to have the same pricing here.

[HTrig]

Originally Posted by bilbo--baggins

If i search for music I know to be iTunes plus it comes up at 99p like you say. However, if you click on the iTunes Plus link on the store home, it says cannot connect, busy. I hope this means they haven't finish sorting it for the UK - it would be pretty bizzarre not to have the same pricing here.

Id just like to point out that the UK will not be getting the same price as the US even if the pricing is all 79p. At the current exchange rate (as found here) 99 cents would be about 49p so we are really paying $1.61 per track about 60% more than the US

EDIT: as most of the tracks in iTunes plus are still 99p we are actually paying twice as much per track

[WildCowboy]

I'm kind of disappointed that they're still charging for the "Upgrade My Library" feature. I thought yesterday that maybe they just hadn't gotten around to changing it, but they've updated the iTunes Plus FAQ to reflect the new pricing, but they still have the section about charges for upgrading.

[phatspider]

Originally Posted by tallyho

There's still a premium on the UK store. DRM songs=79p, iTunes plus songs=99p. There's no point complaining, but maybe one day we'll get the same price as you!

Ive not been able to get into the itunes plus section on uk store all afternoon so maybe there updating it so there 79p for us

[benpatient]

isn't the title of this thread wrong?

how many songs does apple have without DRM?

because amazon has just a hair less than 2.4 million right now...

[Adokimus]

Good news.

[SheriffParker]

Well that's great news! I'll definitely be buying more music from iTunes now. For me, the indie labels get most of my money, so this seals the deal, but for worldwide domination, more major labels are going to have to jump on.

[BTW]

Originally Posted by Adokimus

Good news.

It would be even better if Apple dropped the DRM'd music to 89 cents, but one step at a time.

[tbobmccoy]

I've never really used iTunes music store for much more than sampling songs that I may like, or finding out the names of songs stuck in my head. I rip all my music in Apple Lossless.... I don't even like the degradation in 256k encoding... I'll wait till they start selling Lossless music at 1.29

[sunfast]

This is excellent news. DRM free is definitely the way forward

[P-Worm]

Originally Posted by tbobmccoy

I've never really used iTunes music store for much more than sampling songs that I may like, or finding out the names of songs stuck in my head. I rip all my music in Apple Lossless.... I don't even like the degradation in 256k encoding... I'll wait till they start selling Lossless music at 1.29

Don't get your hopes up.

This is great. I hope that the other companies will pick up on this and understand that this is what people want.

P-Worm

[saxman]

Great news for consumers. Competition is a good thing in business

[PDubNYC]

Any way to upgrade old purchases at no cost like you could for .30 before?

[overanalyzer]

Originally Posted by PDubNYC

Any way to upgrade old purchases at no cost like you could for .30 before?

I was wondering what the deal with that is going to be, too. I just checked the "iTunes Plus Frequently Asked Questions" via iTunes, and it still lists iTunes plus songs as $1.29 along with the old upgrade prices. So I guess we'll see when they update that document if they change the update policy/pricing too.

[Snowy_River]

Originally Posted by PDubNYC

Any way to upgrade old purchases at no cost like you could for .30 before?

This has been discussed in other threads, but I'll mention it here. Do you think that bandwidth is free? If you know that it's not, why do you expect that Apple will spend the money on the bandwidth for you to download the unlocked version of the song, and not expect you to pay anything for it? Sure they locked and unlocked versions are the same price, but if you already bought a locked version and now want to buy an unlocked version, the bandwidth from both downloads still needs to be paid for.

$.30 is hardly exorbitant. And I doubt it will ever be free to upgrade. It might, possibly, drop to something like $.15, but I wouldn't necessarily hold my breath for that.

[Thataboy]

Originally Posted by P-Worm

Don't get your hopes up.

P-Worm

In the near future, you're probably right, but Beatport sells WAV's for an extra $1 (for bandwith). I don't think it is totally unreasonable that Apple offer Apple Lossless for a premium... maybe $1.49 or so. Someday. Maybe.

Anyway, I agree with the above poster... I've given up lossy music too. More and more people are, so I think eventually (probably at least a few years) iTMS will have to respond to the demand for lossless files. Someday. Maybe.

[Phobophobia]

Originally Posted by Thataboy

Anyway, I agree with the above poster... I've given up lossy music too. More and more people are, so I think eventually (probably at least a few years) iTMS will have to respond to the demand for lossless files. Someday. Maybe.

128kb is good enough for most people, and 256kb is going to be good enough for even more people. I doubt Apple has even started to care about lossless at this point.

[Thataboy]

Originally Posted by Phobophobia

128kb is good enough for most people, and 256kb is going to be good enough for even more people. I doubt Apple has even started to care about lossless at this point.

Which is why I said someday, maybe. At least a few years. A lot can happen in a few years though (we have gone from iPod 1G to iPod touch in only 6 years!).

I agree that 256k is good enough for most people, but what's the harm in eventually offering iTunes Extreme for a premium price? They obviously have the infrastructure for this after the introduction of iTunes Plus.

[d_saum]

Originally Posted by Phobophobia

128kb is good enough for most people, and 256kb is going to be good enough for even more people. I doubt Apple has even started to care about lossless at this point.

I wish I could find the article, but a few years ago I read an article in a PC magazine that had a pretty big test group compiled of both audiophiles and everyday joe schmo's and their results showed that the cutoff point was 196Kbps for sound quality in MP3 files. There was not one person that could tell the difference between 196 and 320.

I'll have to poke around for that article. It was a great read because up until that point I was ripping MP3's at 320, but afterwards I ripped at 196 and to this day I cannot tell the difference.