For Apple lovers, everything that the company does is perfect. Even though there are some flaws in their products, there is always an excuse to overlook these flaws. When it comes to DRM and the music they sell on iTunes, it is a bit hard to overlook the restrictions that apply.
With the New Year comes good news, though. Apparently, iTunes Music Store is now doing away with DRM restrictions – at least if the users chooses to pay for the product. Wired.com featured this breaking news early this month:
Steve Jobs and three major labels have come to terms on a deal: Music will be available immediately on iTunes without DRM restrictions. Free of the limitations that currently restrict music playback to Apple products, the new plan will let consumers choose from three price levels instead of the 99-cent song model the store implemented on day one.
The announcement, made Tuesday at the last MacWorld Expo Apple will attend, ends an increasingly ridiculous war between two stubborn players. They may have thought they couldn’t live together, but they certainly couldn’t thrive apart.
In the end, each side got what it wanted in the accord — after refusing to concede for years. That means we could have got here a long time ago. Indeed, iTunes merely joins other digital music stores that have already agreed to major labels’ demands for variable pricing (Amazon, MySpace and Wal-Mart, to name a few) in offering their large music catalogs without DRM.
What do you think about this new development?