Nearly two years ago, Steve Jobs published an open letter to the music industry calling for the death of DRM (digital rights management). He convinced EMI to ditch DRM back in April, 2007, but the three other major music labels held out. Until today. Now all the songs on iTunes are DRM-free, or soon will be.
And, with that, the DRM era of digital music finally can be put to rest. (Amazon’s MP3 store has been selling DRM-free tracks from all the major labels for a year now already). The labels were likely holding out for other concessions from Apple, such as variable pricing (which they got), and the Apple also thankfully convinced them to sell songs over cellular data networks to iPhones for the same price as they could get them on their computers.
But it looks like the labels prevailed in sticking it to consumers on one last point. Anyone who wants to upgrade their entire existing iTunes Library to DRM-free versions of the same songs, can conveniently do so with one click. But it is going to cost you 30 cents a track to do so. That’s right, you have to pay again for songs you already bought. Let’s see, 6 billion songs X 30 cents = $1.8 billion in potential upgrade fees. That’s a music tax, plain and simple. No wonder the music companies finally relented.
It still won’t save them.
Calling it a tax is probably an exaggeration. But in any case, tax or no tax, it is well worth paying if it will lead to the death of DRM.
then what after that?
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Whose idea was it to buy DRM-laden music to begin with? $1.8 billion is a tax on shortsightedness.
:) Wonderful comment!
ditto.
My upgrade will be around $36. That works out to about $9 per year for me to rent to own a hundred songs. I’m quite happy with that.
You can call it shortsightedness if you want, but a better term would be “having different priorities than you.”
It’s a tax on honesty.
If you’ve got more money than you need, I’d rather you gave it to charity, or used it to start a business, or pretty much anything rather than help bail out Big Music’s broken business model.
I’ve bought exactly one DRM-laden album and didn’t start seriously buying downloadable music until Amazon.com starting selling DRM-free mp3s. If you wanted to be honest, you could have continued buying CDs until DRM-free was available. That’s what I did.
A tax on shortsightedness is a perfect description for the upgrade charge.
I guess this just provides even further moral justification for going around the Big 4 and straight to Torrents.
Sure it isn’t ‘legal’, but with concert tickets now around $150 for many of the bands I want to see, I think the industry is trying to have their cake and eat it too – Mike is right, the price is trending to zero, and unlike some commenters below who see this sending artists broke, its probably just going to have to make them work for their money at gigs, just like the rest of us do…
I’ll only pay for this if I ever buy and use something besides an iPod, or have some other reason for needing to go DRM-free. But so long as Apple provides the superior hardware and software experiences that it does today, I’ll happily defer on paying the music tax for now.
Good news for all the people who have held out from buying into iTunes, I guess. iTunes credits are given away with everything these days so I have a small collection of free songs, and for everything else there’s Pandora or satellite radio.
I agree, wish I could sample Pandora (Outside US) but I do enjoy Last.fm :)
Hi Joe,
Just got Pandora going from Australia this week for the first time since they pulled the plug. I posted a howto on my blog: it isn’t going to work for everyone, but I found it pretty easy…
http://www.geof...unlock-pandora/
Geoff
It’s about time people wake up. Boycotting Apple is a good thing.
Steve Jobs should already be in jail for stock option backdating NOT ONLY at Apple but also at Pixar. I don’t know who’s running the government but this is clearly a violation of public trust. Investigate Steve Jobs and lock him up.
You don’t know who’s running the government? Wow, talk about clueless.
Riiiiight – the labels stuck it to consumers.
With Apple’s blessing, that is…
As I have said in other discussions I’ll upgrade tracks I’ve bought (or mostly gotten as free tracks) to have them DRM free and at a higher bitrate.
But what I would really like to see is an option to upgrade non-iTunes purchases to higher bitrates (and ideally complete ID3 tags including lyrics) that would let me update the quality of tracks I ripped many many years ago without losing I’d hope metadata such as play counts, ratings, playlists etc.
Hopefully it will end up the same with videos… in like 10 years ? :)
Next year… pay another 30 cents and get a video with each of your songs (of the same song). I think this nickle and diming has to end eventually… I own an old tape, does that mean I can get a free upgrade to drm-free since I already own it? Nope, didn’t think so. This is just a money grab… listen to internet radio, costs nothing until all these tactics work themselves though.
Jon
http://WoodMarvels.com – Create Unique Memories
I think it’s brilliant, esp. giving the burn/rip alternative for removing DRM. Would you rather burn them to CDs and rip them 1 disc at a time for free? For each CD-R you burn/rip, Apple will do the work for you (and give you a better sounding track) for around $4.
A cumbersome free option, and a paid premium service. Brilliant move.
http://www.tunebite.com No need to try and rip to CD and copy.
I am quite happy that iTunes is losing DRM, not that I ever purchased music from iTunes. Indeed, part of the reason, I’ve only ever purchased one song off of iTunes is specifically because of the DRM.
As for paying to strip the DRM off tracks already purchased, I would have to agree that’s rather lame, but it’s not hard to see why Apple had to do it after the whole iPhone price debacle. Besides, providing the infrastructure to update 6 billion tracks for tens of millions of users isn’t cheap with all the bandwidth and hardware required.
Of course, only a percentage of the 6 billion downloaded songs will be upgraded to DRM free and I’m sure both Apple and the record companies took that into account.
what
It’s these kinds of deals that are propping up the music industry – and specifically the RIAA. Without the deals with iTunes, YouTube, et.al. their demise would come a lot sooner. And the whole world would be better for it. Worst, useless, most pathetic organization ever (caveat, besides the UN of course).
You are being imprecise here Erick. A tax is a cost that the law requires you to pay. iTunes consumers have a choice of whether to pay for DRM-free music, and the vast majority will choose not to do so. It seems by your definition that any company’s efforts to charge for a service is a tax, and that what makes the charge a tax is whether or not you believe the service should be free.
Does TechCrunch believe that music should be distributed at no charge and with no restrictions?
No, I’m using a figure of speech.
And it is not an issue of whether companies can charge for a service. We’ve already paid for these songs. Apple doesn’t charge for software updates. It shouldn’t charge for what is essentially a format update either.
Apple charges iPod Touch users for major updates. This is apparently something to do with accounting although I don’t know the specifics of it. It’s something to do with giving away big features for free. It does not charge iPhone users for updates because they pay a monthly fee anyway. They also did it for early MacBook Pro users who wanted to unlock 802.11n on their Airport cards.
So this could be an accounting thing rather than pure greed. Although, let’s face it, greed probably plays a part.
Yes, sorry to be so prissy, of course it is a figure of speech. I am so far-gone on this issue that I didn’t originally even understand your point of comparison, that it is like a tax because we are paying something for nothing.
It just seemed to me that anyone who thinks the difference between DRM-limited and DRM-free music is nothing — my parents might say, “why would I need that?” — won’t pay for it, and probably won’t need it.
I don’t know why I get into it with you guys about music. It’s an emotional topic for me. I know a few people struggling to get by as musicians, people (like journalists) who are really committed to their craft, who are already willing to earn less money but still need some money, and the Internet is changing their way of life in ways that are painful, and that, I think, will ultimately reduce the amount of good music and good writing that there is in the world.
Or maybe I don’t really think that, because sooner or later people will always pay for quality. I hope that day comes soon, in a way that makes sense for the consumer and the artist. Maybe you do too.
just burn all your music to CDs and then import it again
Yes you moron, sound quality is guaranteed.
Erick, biased much?! You’re calling it “Apple” tax and yet it’s clearly that music companies are behind it. Why don’t you call it for what it really is: Warner tax, Universal tax etc?
Also, when you buy a car, does it entitle you a free upgrade of that car for life? When you buy a new Toyota, do you call a new model a “Toyota tax”? So why should you get free upgrades to your music collection? No one offered me free CDs for my tapes when they became a standard!
Anyway, TC is becoming so silly these days. Reporting has become so polarizing and it looks like you guys are just trying to troll people and create controversies.
Trolling might get you hits but you’ll piss off your readers and they’ll leave.
Ridiculous.
Mike, time to set some standards!
Apple is collecting the tax. Anyway, I call it a “music tax,” not an “Apple tax.”
You are confusing the issue with your car analogy. When I upgrade my car, I get a new one. Here, I’m not getting a new song. I am getting the same song I already paid for.
Erick, you’ve fallen for his trick: “Daves” is a tax troll.
Ridiculous. time to set some standards.
Erick said, “Anyway, I call it a “music tax,” not an “Apple tax.””
Perhaps you should change the headline then.
Dave, this is not the same thing at all. Your car analogy would be correct if you were talking about the iPod or the iPhone but for digital music, it’s different.
The main problem with iTunes is that “high quality” is still sh*t.
HIGH FIDELITY is what we want…stripping DRM ain’t no thang…my 5 year old nephew can take care of that.
Paying for a 128 kbps mp3 (or even a 256) is like paying for an apple pie, taking it home and slicing into it only to find out that you paid for the crust and the pie tin.
Why can’t we buy the pie and eat it too?
Have you ever bought a song off iTunes? You’re talking about 128kbps mp3s so you clearly have not. Why don’t you research it first before writing factually wrong information?
128 aac…whatever it is…still lossy…still not the glorious apple pie that left the mastering studio.
…just ask Neil Young.
99.8% of the population cannot tell the difference between the 128kbps AAC (which is more like 160+mp3) and CD quality.
For those of you that can, buy iTunes Plus which is 256kbps.
And guess what, ALL digital music is “lossy”! Look into sampling rates to find out why.
Unless you’re willing to average 45-75 MB per song, you’re never going to get what left the mastering studio.
Ripping from the CD to your hard drive, even with an uncompressed format like FLAC, is still going to result in signal degredation.
The research behind AAC (and even MP3 for that matter), namely psychoacoustic reasearch, is staggering. 256Kbps is more than enough for most music. Maybe bump it up to 320Kbps for jazz or classical.
But no matter what, even a 24 bit 96Khz WAV is subject to DA converters. Listening from the heaphone jack on your iPod? Total crap. The only way to get around this is recording to tape with the final mix and master going to vinyl. Have fun carrying around a record player!
So what else is new?
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fuck of spammer
If from the beginning Apple had announced $1 songs with a $.30 surcharge for DRM-free versions, I don’t think anyone would have complained.
If today Apple had announced they were going to $1.30 songs but removing all DRM, I don’t think anyone would have complained.
But since new customers are going to get something for cheaper than previous customers, it’s a great big onerous “tax.”
Let’s remember one thing: tech products generally get cheaper over time. That doesn’t mean people who bought early got screwed, or didn’t get what they paid for. And people who jump at the 1st generation of an Apple product ALWAYS pay more for it.
This isn’t anything new, and it isn’t anything evil. The deal just got better for everyone. So it’s not retroactive to all previous purchases. So what? Is it ever?
signed
-A first-round iPhone buyer
On top of the $.30 “convenience” charge, the labels are also upping the price for the biggest hits to $1.29. That decision could well turn out to be one of the worst iTunes every agreed to as it will prompt people to find those same tracks for $.99 @ Amazon ($1 is a HUGE deal, as stupid as it may seem)
Remember if you upgrade you’re going from 128kbps to 256kbps, and that as a result the file size will be effectively TWICE as large.
Nano owners with limited space be warned.
Why upgrade? If you have an iPod or iPhone and use iTunes for a music library (which most people are since it is the “easiest” and “approved” way to do so), then why do you ever need to upgrade the song to its DRM-Free version? You will get the same exact song and, most likely, do with it the exact same thing that you did with the DRM version. The only thing that you can not do with the DRM version is burn an MP3 CD or DVD.
So the question still stands, why update. Also, the question to be asked is how many people are actually going to upgrade or actually care? Out of the 6 billion songs purchased, how many were purchased by tech geeeks looking to screw a DRM system that they would never use anyways? I would say that most likely, a very big percentage of the 6 billon songs were purchased by people who couldn’t care less about DRM versus DRM-Less (or even knew what it meant).
Its not like you can legally share the song anyways. The license still conceptually prevents you from sharing it with your friends.
The only reason I see to upgrade is if you ever want to switch out of your iPod, iPhone, or iTunes as a music player. Now really, how many soccer moms are going to get rid of their iPhone?
Just my two cents…
Didn’t I already pay Apple to download these DRM-protected songs? Why should I have to pay again, even at a discount, just to have them unlocked?
Apple is essentially punishing their loyal customers who have been downloading music for years despite the annoying DRM protection. I plan to boycott the iTunes Store until they come up with a better way of doing away with DRM-protection, and I encourage others to do the same. I’m glad to spend money on music in iTunes, just on for music I already purchased.
Didn’t I already pay Apple to download these DRM-protected songs? Why should I have to pay again, even at a discount, just to have them unlocked? Apple is essentially punishing their loyal customers who have been downloading music for years despite the annoying DRM protection. I plan to boycott the iTunes Store until they come up with a better way of doing away with DRM-protection, and I encourage others to do the same. I’m glad to spend money on music in iTunes, just not on for music I already purchased.
Paying to “unlock” your DRM’ed music is the “idiot tax” that these stupid consumers deserve to pay. I wonder how much the Apple & the RIAA will charge these consumers when they need to move the tracks to a new format in a couple of years????
Apple has freed us from the DRM tyranny of the labels. Great.
Now they can open their media formats so I can take my substantial investment in iTunes to stream through my Squeezebox and other media players. Wait, I suppose that will be another upgrade fee.
DRM was a technological stepping-stone to get the music industry to where we are musically/digitally. This was the genius of Jobs and his iPod. It opened up a digital music mass-market.
It will be interesting to see how this development plays out.
“(Amazon’s MP3 store has been selling DRM-free tracks from all the major labels for a year now already)”
Nice snarky comment. Unfortunately, Amazon.com didn’t carry nearly the width and breadth of music that iTunes has had for a while now.
I invest in both AMZN and AAPL, but Amazon’s music store just effectively died today. Apple has the wide moat here, and now there is zero advantage at all to Amazon’s store.
I have a qualification to make on your prediction that the price of recorded music will approach free. This is only true if online is the sole and dominating choice of music consumption by all consumers going forward, which although is the trend, will never be completely true.
As long as there is demand for recorded music via a brick and mortar distribution channel, there will be a price. The physical CD, its contents, and cost of distribution have a definite value. And as long as physical distributors make a profit, there will be a positive price associated with the product.
If anything, we are talking about two different products.
One is recorded music in electronic media, which I agree will continue to plummet (but not necessarily reach free until there is a trustable P2P service that rivals iTunes/Amazon.com and is not liable to be shut down by the govt).
The other is recorded music in traditional media formats, which will always remain higher to cover the costs of materials and channel.
Will brick and mortar continue to shrink as consumption continues to shift towards online? Sure. But they can’t give away their products for free.
Until my parents, grandparents, and online-unsavvy or legally-conscious friends either shift their consumption channel or go to a better place, recorded music will not be completely free.
You made the dynamic far too simple.
Lots of great comments but not hearing from many people who have had trouble with DRM? I have itunes and an ipod so who’s complaining, Zune users? People upset by DRM can find ways to circumvent it easily.
I spent an hour on the phone with my grandmother today trying to get her comfortable with Yahoo mail. I get that she would welcome DRM-free music because she says things like “how come I can’t play my itunes songs directly on my car stereo…
Apple is so freaking smart it hurts my head. Take the potential billion and give it to the labels and tell them to STFU their days are numbered anyway.
Sweet now I can actually start using iTunes! It’s been a long time coming.
JP
How much does it cost Apple to “send” you all your songs again? How much does it cost to re-encode 10 million songs to 256Mbps MP3? Maybe not $0.30/song, but I will pay the convenience tax on the few songs I bought from the iTunes Store. That’s what this is…a convenience tax. Stop complaining.
That being said, I prefer MP3 for practical reasons so I will stick with Amazon.
Seriously, who needs DRM-free music?
Really good news. DRM free for all iTunes music.
I often used wondershare streaming Video Recorder to download DRM music,videos here.
http://www.flas...corder.html#124
Now it is no use for all music.
How about DRM Videos, DRM movies, and DRM TV shows? When we get free DRM of them.
Wonder if this gets us any close to DRM-free videos? When will I be able to burn TV shows bought through iTunes to DVD? My guess: unlikely to be any time soon.
“Let’s see, 6 billion songs X 30 cents = $1.8 billion in potential upgrade fees.”
I’d guess it’s a lot less than this. A total of 6 billion songs have been sold but you need to subtract all the DRM-free songs from EMI and various indie labels which have been purchased in the last 2 years. I think the difference is not insignificant.
Let’s see…
6 billion songs x 256 kilobits/second * 180 seconds (convenient average) * 1/8 bytes/bit = roughly 34,560 gigabytes of data transfer.
And Apple pays for every single bit that leaves the iTunes store…several analysts estimate their data transit costs at 5 cents per song. And that estimate was before they doubled the bit-rate (and thus doubled the data transfer size).
In the worse case, someone updates a single song. Apple spends a nickel (or a dime) on data transit costs and the credit card processor gets a quarter. Apple gets nothing.
Fortunately the worse case is probably pretty rare.
reinharden
Erick, thanks for answering the one question (what about the DRM on my existing tracks?) I’d been asking as I read every article about this announcement.
Now i can use my remaining balance on iTunes to strip the DRM and move over to Amazon completely.
Thanks for calling them out on this – but don’t point the finger at the record labels only. I don’t think Apple is an innocent bystander here.
Making people pay a 30% tax or fee or whatever to unlock music they already purchased is going to benefit Apple, not just the labels. Apple has a knack for getting people to pay more AND feel good about it. Kudos to them, but it still sticks in my craw.
Now let’s work on DRM-free video! I’d give my first born for video that’s easily transferred from my iPod to my DVR to my laptop to my phone.
iTunes music is drm-free now, but for the old itunes users, full of music must pay a 30-cent upgrade per song, 60 cents for video upgrades, it seems a bit expensive and isn’t worthwhile, the very economical way I use is with this media converter, it can handle with all types drm and common video music files, and also supports batch conversion, works easy and great:)
http://www.wmat...er-pro.html#123
I wonder if they will fix that annoying you can only sync to one music library at a time hopefully i can now go back and forth to work and drag and drop my music. and another thing i have a iphone and i hate the fact that i cant use it as a storage device for file transfer its just stupid Steve needs to take his own advice and unlock the storage we pay for and let us use the object we bought from him for more than a outlet for more apple sales
it looks like the whole free thing isn’t that simple.
I’ve seen people reporting that only US customers will be offered the DRM-free music yesterday .And the upgrade is a all-or-nothing prospect, which means you can’t choose which tracks to upgrade.
Also,I hope Apple gives more options on upgrading my original purchases. I have hundreds of music in my itunes library,and I’m counting the money that will cost if I update all of them!
So, a media converter is much aconomical.I still use software to help me:
http://www.flas...verter.html#141
I’ll just wait for Apple to carry out more actions.
Well Apple has brought down its prices but its not only a question of a company but a matter to look upon as why Apple has slashed its prices. I have my views on http://controve...e-or-prize.html
I have no qualms with this. People bought iTunes files w/ DRM. If they wanted DRM-free, they could have bought CDs. Now, Apple is offering songs DRM free, and people have the choice to convert their old songs or not. This is no different than re-releasing movies on Blu-Ray that were already released on DVD (or, DVD that were originally VHS).
I disagree with the word “tax” being used. Tax implies involuntary. For people saying “What if the iTunes DRM server goes offline? OMG.” That’s like saying “what if people stop making VHS players.” It’ll happen. Either keep your current files and current setup or migrate to new files and a new setup.
When it comes to media, rarely does one see the “upgrade” cost less than the original purchase. (Again, how much does Blu-Ray cost vs. a DVD of the same movie?)
I feel that two business models are going to become the standard, and they’re long overdue. (1) Subscription based, i.e. you don’t own the songs, you just have the right to play them on approved devices for as long as your subscription exists. (2) Upgrade based, i.e. you buy digital media and own it, but can upgrade to higher quality, more featured media for a fee. You then own the new media.
Finally, I think a major factor Blu-Ray has been so slow to get off the ground has been that people hate repurchasing. VHS came out in ‘76. Its successor, DVD, came out in ‘97–21 years later. Then, Blu-Ray came out in 2006–9 years later. Already, we’re seeing “super high resolution TVs.”
So yes, the cost of maintaining the current standard is always expensive during a tech shift, but with digital downloads, the cost can be, should be, and in the case of Apple IS cheaper than the original purchase.
I bought it on vinyl, tape than on CD and I’m not going to pay for it again. Not to mention the ridiculous concert ticket prices. I did my deed. I’ll find some other way to get my few free songs. I refuse to make Steve Jobs line his pocket. He clearly take advantage of his customers in every situation to suck blood out of them.
That company has no scruples. Notice the logo? kinda looks like a fist giving the…
Yes, that’s always been true.
But there’s another reason to upgrade: DRM tracks are 128kb. Burning and ripping will degrade that further. The non-DRM tracks are 256kb.
I don’t know about you, but my time (and the cost of CDRs) are worth more than what is “saved” by doing this to all my iTunes music. And in the end you’re left with an inferior copy of the original.
Or you could pay 30% of the original price and get a DRM-free track with twice the bitrate… duh.