Written by on Sunday, June 3, 2007

iTunes Plus – Apple Offers Unprotected Music


For $1.29 per track you can now buy unprotected tunes from Apple/EMI at the iTunes Store.  Albums are offered at the same price as the protected version.  In order to do this, you must upgrade to the free iTunes 7.2.

The non-protected tracks are encoded at 256kbps, which is double the 128kbps bit-rate of the protected songs.  However, it would take an extremely discerning ear to hear the difference.

Read the whole story at PC World

[tags]iTunes, ipod, mp3, aac, jamm, just another mobile monday[/tags]

More in iPhone/iPod Touch | 2 Comments


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2 Comments

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melvynadam
Jun 3, 2007

I’m suprised you haven’t mentioned the controversial aspect of this story that seems to have got many people angry. Personally I think it’s a lot of fuss over nothing but people ought to judge for themselves. Apple may have removed the DRM but they are making sure the tracks you buy are still unique to the purchaser and are individually identifiable:
http://www.tuaw.com/2007/05/30/tuaw-tip-dont-torrent-that-song/
Apparently there’s account data in there too:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070530-apple-hides-account-info-in-drm-free-music-too.html

Finally, when you’re deciding whether this is an issue you can read this article entitled “Apple embeds user data in iTunes Plus songs – So What?”:
http://www.geeksrus.com/2007/06/01/apple-embeds-user-data-in-itunes-plus-songs-so-what/

I think I’m exhibiting a little bias in my choice of a “roundup” article but that’s life ;)


Brandon Steili
Jun 4, 2007

Honestly – I like that they went with DRM Free. I like that they embedded some info to help prove that someone is sharing music… Truth be told it is against the law, no matter if you like it or not to share music.

Key here is – share away – but with close friends. Don’t paste the stuff all over the internet and you won’t have a problem.

I’ve shared music with my friends for years – and that’s not likely to change… BUT we don’t plaster it on P2P networks.

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