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Apple Dropping iTunes Plus (DRM Free) Songs to $.99?

wattage said:
Anyone else find it funny that some people vote this type of news as a 'Negative'!!

What's negative about a price drop??
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Wasn't it once positive or negative referred to likelihood the rumour was true?

I'd like 2 different buttons.. true or false, good or bad (assuming it is true).
 
mashinhead said:
i don't know the iTunes store seems like kind of dead avenue to me. i find that i use it less and less. I think it should actually move to a subscription basis and then it will see more growth. I just get this feeling that both companies and consumers are starting to move away from it. The ipod's still great though.
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HA HA HA!! Good one. Had me going there... NOT!

Peace said:
This is a good step.Now all Apple needs to do is get Warner Bros. and Universal in DRM-Free format.;)
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Have you been paying attention anytime recently???

Universal bailed from iTunes/Apple. They are majorly pissed off at Jobs. They're offering their whole catalog to Amazon just to spite Jobs and to try and take down iTunes/Apple/Jobs.

Don't anyone think Universal wants low prices. They simply want to stick it to iTunes and see if they get people buying elsewhere, then jack up the price.
 
Looks like it's still an all-or-nothing upgrade. Why would it be so hard to offer a choice to upgrade songs on a track by track basis?

Oh well, I gave up lossy music this summer anyway. Call me when it's Lossless. Til then, the only download store I can use is Beatport :)
 
dmelgar said:
Have you been paying attention anytime recently???

Universal bailed from iTunes/Apple. They are majorly pissed off at Jobs. They're offering their whole catalog to Amazon just to spite Jobs and to try and take down iTunes/Apple/Jobs.

Don't anyone think Universal wants low prices. They simply want to stick it to iTunes and see if they get people buying elsewhere, then jack up the price.
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Yes I pay very close attention that's why I made that statement.:rolleyes:
 
amazon offers DRM free mp3 for 89c~99c for a month now, this is why we need competition, rather than iTMS monopoly.
 
Well, this is certainly looking a lot more attractive to me than Amazon.com's download scheme, mainly because I pretty much get the DRM-free stuff, while having the superior payment model. What I hate about Amazon is that it doesn't allow me to use paypal, and it automatically stores my credit info after purchasing. That alone sort of keeps me from making more purchases there.
 
It was nice to see a lot of my favorite albums becoming DRM free, sadly even though I bought the songs at $0.99 to upgrade them it still costs $3, even though the iTunes Plus versions are $0.99, Oh well. I like it it's nice of them.
 
Maccus Aurelius said:
Well, this is certainly looking a lot more attractive to me than Amazon.com's download scheme, mainly because I pretty much get the DRM-free stuff, while having the superior payment model. What I hate about Amazon is that it doesn't allow me to use paypal, and it automatically stores my credit info after purchasing. That alone sort of keeps me from making more purchases there.
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iTMS doesn't save your credit card info?
 
LFrascogna said:
Yeah, i have the same problem. I think .30 per song is excessive. I always thought there would be a way to just unlock things.

I'm going to hold out and see if eventually my iTunes plus upgrades are free.
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For just DRM-free? yes. For double the sound quality? Totally worth it.
 
I would be perfectly happy to see every track go non-DRM but with a identifying watermark that can't be scrubbed out. Non-DRM should be about liberal -- but legal -- use of your tracks.
 
bellicelli said:
I never really understod why I had to pay to upgrade full albums when the album Plus price is always the same as the non-Plus price.

Now the indiviudal tracks aren't even more expensive for Plus, so why am I being chanrged for buying the full album?
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Because there's a difference between a new customer and an upgrade customer. New customers are far more valuable.

Upgrades will never be free-- just think of the bandwidth hit they'll take in a few years when 100 billion songs get released in a new format at as a free upgrade...
Superdrive said:
Literally, the price...
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Literally, the price is still positive. The change in price is negative.
clevin said:
amazon offers DRM free mp3 for 89c~99c for a month now, this is why we need competition, rather than iTMS monopoly.
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I really don't think this is Apple competing with Amazon. This is Apple trying to shake the other majors into going DRM free. If they were competing with Amazon they'd drop the price on their DRM'd songs too. Keeping lower bitrate, DRM'd songs at the same price as the good stuff just makes the old stuff look broken.

I do think we can thank Amazon on this: I think EMI dropped their price as a result of Amazon's pricing. To the extent people make their music purchase decisions based on secondary features such as bitrate, price and DRM, if EMI was going to continue pursuing their goal of increasing market share by dropping DRM they need to make sure the price at least matches other labels who are doing the same.

Apple also probably has most favored nation status with EMI-- so if EMI offers their music to Amazon at a lower price, Apple gets the same deal.
 
Porchland said:
I would be perfectly happy to see every track go non-DRM but with a identifying watermark that can't be scrubbed out. Non-DRM should be about liberal -- but legal -- use of your tracks.
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I've always been a fan of watermarking. Yes, it can be circumvented, but it's not like these other systems can't...

samh004 said:
And that's fair to whom now... (apart from you) ?
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I'm willing to step up and say it's fair to me too... ;)
 
NDLaHam said:
excellent!!

Now just offer the songs in ACC or MP3(for people that don't use player that can't support aac)
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Every portable player supports AAC in the last few years (even Zune). Every mobile phone supports AAC.
 
rocketsauce9 said:
this is real nice, i'm stiil wating for 50 cents a song, but 99 will do for now.
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samh004 said:
And that's fair to whom now... (apart from you) ?
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Analog Kid said:
I'm willing to step up and say it's fair to me too... ;)
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Well, not very fair to me. I'm a struggling independent artist who refuses to sell out to the major record labels, but I'm never going to survive if people aren't even willing to pay 99 cents for a song. What's with you bunch of cheapskates!?

Anyway, 99 cents for DRM free tunes is a pretty good deal. I hope they convert my albums to that format (they haven't yet, though they did make one of my albums ringtonable by surprise!)
 
This has been happening since at least the beginning of September

(Crossposting this from the discussion in the iTunes forum)

I reported this ages ago on mactalk.com.au. Even took a screenshot of The Go Team's new album being in the iTunes Plus format:

(http://forums.mactalk.com.au/showpost.php?p=366825&postcount=14)
Oh, just a little addition to my purchase of The Go! Team's Proof of Youth album - If you have a look at my image just a few posts up, you'll see that it's in iTunes Plus' unprotected, 256kb format.

Go have a look at it on the iTunes Store - Notice the track prices?

Yeah, that's right. They're $1.69. Not $2.19. How curious.
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That's in Australian dollars, by the way. They didn't have the little + icon next to the tracks, either. This is the screenshot I took of the first track from the album:
 

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Yes, they need to get serious about maintaining their position in music downloads. Youtube has video all locked up and Steam has games all locked up, songs is all they have.
 
Grimace said:
I wonder if the law suits will come from this too. The price dropped too soon on my songs I paid $1.29 for!! Give me a refund Steve!! I can hear it now.... :rolleyes:
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No I just hear the sounds of suckers crying out. This is the fabled "Apple Tax" at work. iTunes+ costs nothing more to make and very little to distribute vs. a traditional track. All it is, is Apple weeding out the fanbois and suckers. Now that they have harvested them its time to go after the more traditional buyers. Those who won't scream: OMG! NO DRM AND A HIGHER BR! *swoons*

If they do this I wonder how much it will cost to upgrade a track or are they going to outright drop that.
 
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