Apple to end music restrictions

smutek · Post by **smutek** » Wed Jan 07, 2009 2:45 am

sorry if this has already been posted, thought some of you might be interested, too tired and lazy to search

Apple to end music restrictions

beats me · Post by **beats me** » Wed Jan 07, 2009 3:05 am

I hope they pull this off better than the DRM free itunes plus songs. I still can't figure out how to access those directly. The playlist in the itunes store shows the "+" next to the song but where do you get them? The only thing I've found is upgrading the songs you've already purchased and even that page doesn't show everything I purchased in my library that is supposedly available in that format.

There should be an option button next to each track to add whichever version you want to your shopping cart. Com'on Apple!!

I think I'm screwed on my past purchases though cause I got so fed up I burned my 1,000+ purchased tracks to CD, ripped those back to mp3, and then tossed the DRM versions showing in my "purchased" playlist. I assume my purchased playlist is my proof of, um, purchase.

suspended childhood · Post by **suspended childhood** » Wed Jan 07, 2009 3:13 am

did you get a detailed receipt?

i really think amazon is they way to go...as far as a model for online purchases...

adventurepants_ · Post by **adventurepants_** » Wed Jan 07, 2009 3:40 am

thats excellent news. Itunes is the number one online music provider (sales wise), so if they go this way, it will probably force the whole market to go this way.

Apple must have done some serious leaning on the major labels to get this, as the labels have been rabidly pro DRM all along.

now all they have to do is sell sub 320k mp3s for 10c each (still more than theyre worth) and people may start buying music again.

buzzcock · Post by **buzzcock** » Wed Jan 07, 2009 4:22 am

I still don't get why you'd pay cd prices (or more) for an album's worth of material in 256kbps aac compressed crap format. What happened to the idea of lossless downloads? Hard for me to swallow "upgrading" my music collection over and over again (oh they will charge again you when lossless/PCM downloads become available) when I could have just bought it at the highest quality in the first place.

jonny72 · Post by **jonny72** » Wed Jan 07, 2009 4:26 am

beats me wrote:I hope they pull this off better than the DRM free itunes plus songs. I still can't figure out how to access those directly. The playlist in the itunes store shows the "+" next to the song but where do you get them?

By the time they've finished switching everything to iTunes Plus that is all you will be able to buy. They don't offer both versions anymore and haven't for a long time, if it says iTunes Plus you get the track in 256k AAC format, otherwise its 128k AAC with DRM.

If a track says iTunes Plus just click the buy button and you get the iTunes Plus version.

beats me · Post by **beats me** » Wed Jan 07, 2009 4:59 am

buzzcock wrote:I still don't get why you'd pay cd prices (or more) for an album's worth of material in 256kbps aac compressed crap format. What happened to the idea of lossless downloads? Hard for me to swallow "upgrading" my music collection over and over again (oh they will charge again you when lossless/PCM downloads become available) when I could have just bought it at the highest quality in the first place.

This is probably because the industry is slow to move and they are still selling CDs. If they started selling completely lossless formats over the internet they'd lose a lot of the money they put into CDs and distribution.

Maybe if the die hards stopped buying CDs they'd see there's no money in it and the battle for best download quality would finally begin. These are the people you need to blame.