Music: Digital downloads may drop DRM restrictions

The Distorted-Loop website carries a breathless up-to-the-minute
post by Jonny on what may be a price revolution for digitally-downloaded music, especially from iTunes Music Store. Not just that, but the entire Digital Rights Management (what newspeak the DRM expression is!) promises to unscrew and in the process unscrew us, truly a gain for weary consumers.

H+-level negotiations have been taking place in the present financial climate, where a Depression hangs over everything like a thick smog. Will the music industry go down, taking iTunes and confrères with it ...? Steve Jobs is reported to have lost billions in his stock portfolio already, and we may expect that many of the negotiators for the other companies involved have likewise undoubtedly "dropped a bundle."

Steve Jobs--recently lost 2.3 billions
Uploaded by Anaximaximumphotographics

Steve Jobs of Apple, tho he lost a fortune, is negotiating with the DRM kingpins of the digital music industry to ease the financial load on music lovers.
The photo appeared as #15 in the set "The Biggest Losers: 20 global moguls who have gotten creamed in the recent economic collapse"--the set accompanies the article of that title by Hilary Lewis, Nov26,2k8, Business Sheet (none of the photographers are mentioned).

Maybe the downturn has forced new thinking to jell in the fetid money-brains of the digital music industry. Suddenly, with Mr Jobs' leverage, perhaps the music tycoons and their customers may together benefit from this possible move.

The long-standing duel between Apple and three major labels, Universal, Warners and Sony BMG may be coming to an end, with tracks from these majors now showing up within the iTunes Plus music upgrade service.

There’s been strong rumours claiming negotiations between Apple and the labels to offer music at high quality free of restrictive DRM have intensified in recent weeks. Sony BMG is already thought to be uploading tracks to make available through iTunes Plus.

Overnight sundry spies have spotted tracks from the three hold-out majors popping up in the ‘Upgrade My Library’ section of iTunes, where users can upgrade their purchases from DRM’d to DRM-free tracks.

For example, Rakim’s rather special ‘The 18th Letter/The Book of Life’ is currently available to upgrade to iTunes Plus. The major label behind this release is, of course, Universal.

Music Biz, by AudioViz

iTunes Plus was introduced in April 2007 with DRM-free tracks from EMI. The catalogue later grew to include music from many independent labels. While songs cost slightly more, they ship in higher-quality 256k bitrates. You can upgrade existing purchases for 20-pence.

Apple’s move to offer its full catalogue in DRM-free format opens the doors for a level playing field in digital music, with services including Amazon MP3 in the US and 7digital in the UK already offering tracks free of DRM in MP3 format for sale at the same price as an ordinary iTunes track.

Open to question at time of writing is whether Apple will compete on price by lowering iTunes Plus track prices to match existing standard downloads, and whether the company will make a major announcement on its plans later today. (Customarily, watch for an announcement around 1.30pm, well, if an announcement is to be made at all).

** Well, the day’s moving on and no official news yet - we’ve dropped an enquiry to Apple, and their lack of a response suggests at present these moves belong in the official ‘rumour and speculation’ department, it may be helpful if readers have a check to see what songs/artists from the three majors they can dig out using the ‘Upgrade’ feature in iTunes, and note them here. Hang in there.

We owe Distorted-Loop'a Jonny a huge tip of the hat. (The underlines in the quoted text above are added by yours truly.)