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

[MacinDoc]

Been waiting to buy Jars of Clay's new Christmas album. They recently left Sony BMG to start their own label, Gray Matters. They've finally got the album up, and it's iTunes plus. Check it out!
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?id=263963117&s=143441

A bit early for me to get into Christmas music, but this is another example of why spending $5/month for unlimited "free" downloads from Universal is not nearly as good a deal as it sounds. With the proliferation of Indy artists and labels, you just miss out on too much good stuff. Save your $5/mo and buy 5 songs you really want instead. And keep them without paying again and again every single month for them.

 

[BWhaler]

This is good news.

I started moving back to buying CD's after spending about $6,000 on iTMS. The crappy bit rate and DRM finally starting getting to me. I gave Apple a second chance with iTunes Plus, but it took too long for new content to appear so I can upgrade my library.

So I've gone back to DVD's. I just bought the new Clapton DVD Set for $14 on Amazon and its $26 on iTunes. Cheaper, higher bit rate and DRM free.

I don't get mad exclusively at Apple. I know the record companies have blood on their hands.

But the whole thing is a mess. Charge me $.99 per song, 256 bit AAC, DRM free and I'll be back buying music.

Apple wins.
The record labels win since is more profitable as a channel.
The environment wins...no plastic disks around for 1,000 years
I win...music the way I want when and how I want it.
The artists win since I will buy more music and discover new albums and artists.

Hopefully reason will win out...

 

[minik]

Screen shot

Same DRM'ed 99 cents tracks. I purchased 2 songs from that album, but they ain't on the Upgrade section.

 

[Dublo7]

I wish they'd make the Plus range a lot bigger

 

[Iroganai]

How many of us will sue Apple $1 million for mental distress
coming from the 30-cent drop in price ?
John Gruber already contacted his lawyer

 

[Analog Kid]

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!)

Here's the thing for me-- if the titles were cheaper, I'd be buying a lot more. If they were a quarter a track, I'd probably buy a few bucks worth a day-- and some of that would filter back to you. As it stands, I buy very little and I don't think I've helped you in your career much.

Some may say that a subscription model is what I'm looking for, but I'm not. Renting music sticks in my craw. I want to buy stuff. Maybe it's crap and I junk it, maybe it's the latest Genshi track and I put it into heavy rotation.

Can I suggest you put links to your stuff in your sig? I'd love to hear what people here do. We've got "photo of the day" threads that I think are great, I'd be psyched to start clicking on people's sigs and finding new stuff that way.

 

[swagi]

Every portable player supports AAC in the last few years (even Zune). Every mobile phone supports AAC.

Nearly no CD-entertainment system in a car supports AAC. But they support MP3-data CDs. And I'd rather have a MP3-CD stolen than my iPod

 

[Loge]

I honestly do not understand how someone could select 'negative' for this news story.

Some will vote negative to see how quickly they can draw a "how can someone rate this negative?" post.

 

[gnasher729]

So, I went to the iTunes Plus section of the store, and there are now two new upgradable albums that weren't available before (I upgraded everything available in May)

HOWEVER, there is still a cost associated with upgrading these albums ($4.78 for 20 tracks) even thought the individual tracks are, in fact $99 for individual Plus tracks.

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?

When you upgrade, Apple has to pay money to EMI. Letting you upgrade without any charge would mean Apple has to pay this out of its own pocket. Can't see them doing that.

 

[minik]

My Nokia 6682 (S60 2nd Edition) doesn't do 256kbps track. It only supports upto 192kbps.

 

[Moening]

I would be quite happy with this change in price because I really like those drm free titles in high quality.

But what I find more interesting. Why in hell can't I download Itunes anymore. It
says "We are busy updating"

http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/

Does this indicate something or is it common?

 

[aswitcher]

No change in Aus ITMS

 

[goosnarrggh]

My Nokia 6682 (S60 2nd Edition) doesn't do 256kbps track. It only supports upto 192kbps.

Then hopefully your media management software includes a feature to automatically downsample your music as it is transfered to the portable player. That's been a feature in both iTunes and Windows Media Player for quite some time now.

 

[Max E Verde]

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.

Funny, ever since the iTunes Store has come to my iPhone I have been buying more and more. Including a couple movies, season passes to Sarah Silverman Show and South Park and a ton of music

 

[koobcamuk]

My Nokia 6682 (S60 2nd Edition) doesn't do 256kbps track. It only supports upto 192kbps.

time to get an iphone...

 

[Porchland]

I've always been a fan of watermarking. Yes, it can be circumvented, but it's not like these other systems can't...

The people in the anti-DRM crowd who say they don't like watermarking because it's intrusive or big brother-ish are so transparent. What they really don't like isn't the use restrictions -- it's paying for music.

Whining about DRM is legitimate is some cases, but Apple's use policy is liberal enough for the vast majority of users who download tracks, burn CDs and use iPods.

 

[peestandingup]

If you think about it, there was no real reason why the DRM free songs had to be more expensive than the regular ones. Sure they were encoded higher, but that doesnt cost Apple that much more to store those. It was a natural progression that shouldn't have been charged more for in the first place.

 

[johnmcboston]

Always curious why 'indie' stuff had DRM on it to begin with. I see DRM's songs that I can get DRM free on emusic of CDBaby... I htink apple used to make them do DRM to keep the big labels happy even if local artists didn't want DRM (or didn't care either way).

 

[BTW]

This is a good step.Now all Apple needs to do is get Warner Bros. and Universal in DRM-Free format.

It would be nice if Apple price matched all of Amazon's titles that are 89 cents. That's the next step. Winner consumer!

 

[mozmac]

This is exactly why we all benefit when iTunes competitors come to market. I love using Amazon MP3.

 

[decadentdave]

That's hilarious that NBC pulled out of iTunes because they thought .99 cents was too low so Apple offered DRM-Free downloads at $1.29 and nobody bought them so they lowered the price to .99 cents. I bet NBC is eating their words now.

 

[SthrnCmfrtr]

The people in the anti-DRM crowd who say they don't like watermarking because it's intrusive or big brother-ish are so transparent. What they really don't like isn't the use restrictions -- it's paying for music.

Whining about DRM is legitimate is some cases, but Apple's use policy is liberal enough for the vast majority of users who download tracks, burn CDs and use iPods.

While you're reading minds, could you travel to D.C. and find out for me if we're really going to attack Iran? Inquiring minds want to know, but thusfar we've lacked someone of your caliber.

Anyway, it's partially economics. I can go to a store and buy a CD for $5.99 (or lower) used, which I can then rip to ALAC and play on everything in the house. Why should I pay $10 for something of lower bitrate with restrictions on how I use it? It's not particularly appealing. The only sensible reasons are for convenience/availability or because you like to cherry-pick the tracks. Personally, I only have whole albums...

It's also principle. I can resent restrictions without them applying to me, since I am an evolved human being. For instance, I'm not crazy about bans on gay marriage, even though I'm straight. I don't smoke marijuana, but I'm not crazy about the War on Drugs. There are a lot of ridiculous laws in the USA that do not necessarily restrict my actions, but I resent them nevertheless. The same applies to entertainment purchases: I don't like DRM, so I continue to buy CDs because they lack DRM. I also rip all of my DVDs so that I can play them from any video player I own, regardless of what some whore politician decided my legal rights should be.

As for a problem with paying for music, I just cheerfully spent $20 on In Rainbows by Radiohead because I dislike DRM, like Radiohead, and I believe in voting with my money.

There are plenty of reasons to dislike DRM. The inability to share DRM-laden music is such a pathetically inconsequential hindrance that it's laughable. Seriously, go look at a major BitTorrent tracker, and report back with how many >256Kbps or Lossless versions of your favorite album you find. Do you honestly think that people are pissed off about DRM because they pay $10 for a low-bitrate album and then can't pirate it?

 

[genshi]

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!)

Here's the thing for me-- if the titles were cheaper, I'd be buying a lot more. If they were a quarter a track, I'd probably buy a few bucks worth a day-- and some of that would filter back to you. As it stands, I buy very little and I don't think I've helped you in your career much.

Some may say that a subscription model is what I'm looking for, but I'm not. Renting music sticks in my craw. I want to buy stuff. Maybe it's crap and I junk it, maybe it's the latest Genshi track and I put it into heavy rotation.

Can I suggest you put links to your stuff in your sig? I'd love to hear what people here do. We've got "photo of the day" threads that I think are great, I'd be psyched to start clicking on people's sigs and finding new stuff that way.

A quarter a track!? What is wrong with you? Don't you people realize that others are trying to make a living here? Not just the big record labels but the artists themselves, and the retailers, distributors, publishers; all that money gets split up between these people.

Seriously, if we didn't even have the ability to download songs for 99 cents you'd have no choice but to go back to your local record store buying CDs at $14 to $19 (usually without a way to preview them and not being able to find independent artists) or go back to using illegal p2p downloading services and if you are the type to do that, then you have no ethics and I have no respect for you or your opinion. Sorry.

When it comes to music, these kind of issues really matter to me since I've been a musician practically my whole life. Ever since Al Gore's wife Tipper tried to ban certain music because she caught her 11 year old daughter listening to "Darling Nikki" by Prince (and after a fight from everyone from Frank Zappa to John Denver, the compromise was to add warning labels to albums) I, among many other struggling musicians, have been very watchful of the industry because it seems like, at every turn, someone somewhere is doing something for the benefit of either the labels, the retailers or the consumers, but never for the artists themselves that are MAKING the music that you are enjoying!

Sorry for the rant, just woke up and I'm still a bit grumpy, but...

For some reason my sig is not showing up though it is "turned on" so... Available in iTunes Music Store, one of my albums under one of my many project names: The Warm Wet Low by jido-genshi.

 

[fabianjj]

While you're reading minds, could you travel to D.C. and find out for me if we're really going to attack Iran? Inquiring minds want to know, but thusfar we've lacked someone of your caliber.

Anyway, it's partially economics. I can go to a store and buy a CD for $5.99 (or lower) used, which I can then rip to ALAC and play on everything in the house. Why should I pay $10 for something of lower bitrate with restrictions on how I use it? It's not particularly appealing. The only sensible reasons are for convenience/availability or because you like to cherry-pick the tracks. Personally, I only have whole albums...

It's also principle. I can resent restrictions without them applying to me, since I am an evolved human being. For instance, I'm not crazy about bans on gay marriage, even though I'm straight. I don't smoke marijuana, but I'm not crazy about the War on Drugs. There are a lot of ridiculous laws in the USA that do not necessarily restrict my actions, but I resent them nevertheless. The same applies to entertainment purchases: I don't like DRM, so I continue to buy CDs because they lack DRM. I also rip all of my DVDs so that I can play them from any video player I own, regardless of what some whore politician decided my legal rights should be.

As for a problem with paying for music, I just cheerfully spent $20 on In Rainbows by Radiohead because I dislike DRM, like Radiohead, and I believe in voting with my money.

There are plenty of reasons to dislike DRM. The inability to share DRM-laden music is such a pathetically inconsequential hindrance that it's laughable. Seriously, go look at a major BitTorrent tracker, and report back with how many >256Kbps or Lossless versions of your favorite album you find. Do you honestly think that people are pissed off about DRM because they pay $10 for a low-bitrate album and then can't pirate it?

Exactly my thought, although DRM won't have any effect on pirates who never pay for everything, it may prevent slight piracy from those who pay for music and then simply share a song or two to a friend.

One funny thing I remember that seems really really weird. I was looking for a rare song on a file sharing application (a song that I did have at home on a purchased CD) and all I could find was a WMA file, which turned out to be DRM:ed

 

[balamw]

A quarter a track!? What is wrong with you? Don't you people realize that others are trying to make a living here? Not just the big record labels but the artists themselves, and the retailers, distributors, publishers; all that money gets split up between these people.

Let's just assume that the players get the same cut regardless of how it is sold.

What's better?

• 40 individual tracks at $0.25
• 10 individual tracks at $0.99
• 1 album at $9.99

In each case the revenue is ~$10 so each player would get the same share.

If the volume goes up >4X at a price point of $0.25 (because you are now bringing in new business that would not buy at a higher price) all the players make a better living.

Now it's not clear that volume would or could go up that much, but it certainly is possible.

B