May 16, 2007
Good News, Bad News
Posted by Hal Bogerd at May 16, 2007 8:48 PMGood News: Maximum PC (June 2007 issue) magazine reports that EMI will offer its music catalog without copy protection (DRM) through iTUNES.
Bad News: Tracks will be priced $1.29 instead of $.99. I guess they estimate that approximately one out of every three downloads will be illegally traded once so they upped the price accordingly (4 x $.99 ~ 3 x $1.29).
I don't remember Steve Job's open letter against DRM stating that the reason he wanted to get rid of copy protection was so iTUNES could charge $.30 more per track! The reported "reason" is the added expense of the 256 kps bit rate versus 128 kps. Are EMI and Apple admitting there is a difference in quality and they've been selling an inferior product?
I read that the "album" price level will stay the same - at $9.99... what's the fuss? $.30 more cents to have unencumbered mp3s or full album / higher quality downloads for the same album price? I'm there!
Posted by: smarty at May 17, 2007 5:08 AMThanks smarty. I hadn't heard the album price would not go up but that makes me wonder about the added "expense" on the individual tracks? Sounds fishy to me.
