I know this is being discussed everywhere, even once or twice here already, but I just couldn’t help myself. Apple announced at Macworld ’09 that iTunes would be completely DRM-Free by the end of March. This is huge news. Now I have never really had an issue with DRM on my media. In fact, some time ago I wrote a post on here about DRM which I will link to at the bottom of this post.
People have been upset at Apple for their continued use of DRM on music for a while. This has caused people to use the amazon MP3 store, and of course the torrents. But now that iTunes is opening up, will you use the iTunes store more? I know I already have. I am excited about iTunes going DRM-Free. This is a big step, and it keeps everything in one place.
One complaint that I am noticing comes from people that don’t think they should have to pay to upgrade their already purchased iTunes music to iTunes Plus (DRM-Free). This has been the case since Apple introduced iTunes Plus a few years ago. If you wanted your music to be open, then you would pay a premium for it, or pay an upgrade fee of $0.30 USD a song for what you already had purchased from them. I don’t see that as a bad deal.
The question is, could Apple release a script that could strip out DRM from your already purchased music? I am positive that they could. However, If you were Apple would you want to be responsible if this script ended up corrupting previously purchased music causing it not to play and having to be repurchased? My answer to that is no. I myself am more than willing to pay to upgrade my library. I think if you are not willing to pay, then that is fine. Don’t complain about the DRM!
