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The credit crunch and economic downturn can claim the credit for this one.

What I will wait to see is if they stand by iTunes Plus after the economy recovers in future.

I still think that they are greedy bastards! they are using iTunes to cut back their costs in order to line their pockets whilst shafting starving artists off their royalty dues.

Did you say "starving artists"? Oh puleeze!!!
Jake

It's going to be a magical Christmas in Norway this year.

Nov 25, 08 - 10:32 am Comment from: Aldebaran

When EMI went DRM-free, their track prices were bumped up to $1.29, but then later dropped back down to $0.99. I upgraded the tracks I had immediately, but was pissed off to find that the price dropped not long after and I wouldn't have had to pay anything additional.
It looks like the same pattern might be taking place with Universal, Warner, and Sony BMG as well. The upgrade price is $0.20 per track. I think I'll wait a while and see if that holds or if they decide to drop back to $0.99 like EMI.

Is there a way to upgrade individual tracks you already own?? I've got a bunch that are available for upgrade, but don't want to do them en masse.

Nov 25, 08 - 10:39 am Comment from: macaholic

Release the hounds!!

Even after EMI prices dropped to 99 cents you still had to pay 20-30 cents to upgrade, so you might as well upgrade them now, this won't change.

aldebaran,

if i go to "upgrade my library" the upgraded tracks are $.30 each but visiting the indiviual albums, the "plus" tracks are only $.99. In other words, they are still charging the $.30 upgrade even though buying the track now for the first time would only cost $.99.

Nov 25, 08 - 10:48 am Comment from: macaholic

Also, where the heck is this upgrade button at?

Nov 25, 08 - 10:53 am Comment from: Follower

@rip off - Think of it as a software version upgrade. Say I buy Panic's Transmit version 2 for $29, and use it (listen to it) for six months. Then they release version 3 with improvements that I want (DRM-free and higher bitrate). It costs me $10 to upgrade. However, if I had never bought it and was buying it for the first time, version 3 would cost me -- $29.

Now, you can also call that a rip-off, but it's the way that most software upgrades work. The ability to upgrade to iTunes Plus fits all the criteria of a software upgrade, at least to me.

Nov 25, 08 - 10:54 am Comment from: Predrag

They are charging you to upgrade because the new tracks are now better quality. You can think of it this way: the value (price) of your original, DRM-infested, 128kbps track has dropped to about $0.69, and in order to get the full DRM-free track, you have to pay additional $0.30.

If this is true and consistent, that means that the labels (and most importantly, Universal) have caved and crawled back to Steve. And Steve was generous enough and said to them: "Ok, you can come back now and play with us, but you must promise to behave".

I'm thinking that the lack of a press release may be the only concession that Steve had to make in order to get them back, so that the labels could avoid embarrassment of crawling back (or so they hope). As we all know, the cat will very quickly get out of the bag and, if this turns out to be consistent across the board, it will come out very, very quickly.

It's ironic, though, that, as much as labels have been kicking and screaming, this will end up making their year (or at least holiday season).

Nov 25, 08 - 11:09 am Comment from: Shadowself

Still waiting for lossless.

Nov 25, 08 - 11:20 am Comment from: macaholic

wah wah @ shadowwhatsit

Well, it's good to see that iTunes had joined the crowd, led by Amazon No, seriously. Given the choice, it's a lot easier to purchase songs directly from within iTunes than using Amazon's website and having to load into iTunes. Of course that's only because iTunes won't monitor folders.

Now if only they'd drop the price to $0.79 for some tracks.

At the same time, Predrag, Apple haters will argue that Steve Jobs was the one forced to add more DRM-free music, dragged kicking and screaming because FairPlay is one of the important pieces of maintaining the iPod/iTunes "monopoly." Therefore he was the one who didn't want a press release or announcement at an event.

Nov 25, 08 - 11:29 am Comment from: Predrag

Jordan,

Looking at the way you worded your comment, it seems that you're under the impression that somehow Apple was holding out for months, while Amazon listened to its customers and gave it what they wanted. As most of us know, it was the record labels that refused to provide DRM-free 'iTunes Plus' tracks to Apple, and at the same time worked with Amazon (and several other insignificant online players) to give them DRM-free music, discounted track pricing, etc, in a valiant (and ultimately futile) effort to unseat iTunes as the dominant player in the music download market.

During this time, several of us continued to remind people not to fall for this trap. We urged everyone to ignore (DRM-free) Amazon and continue buying iTunes as much as possible. Ultimately, the result seems to be forthcoming: labels are indeed crawling back to iTunes and letting Apple sell their catalogues DRM-free.

I don't think you should expect $0.79 tracks on iTunes, though. Just like you shouldn't expect $1.40 tracks either. At least not in the near future; not untile iTunes (or music downloads combined) constitute more than half of all music sold (i.e. including CDs).

Nov 25, 08 - 11:35 am Comment from: Predrag

Shadowself,

Good luck with that. Lossless will never happen. You can forget about it. AAC has proved to be immensly popular. The bump in bitrate for iTunes Plus seems to have placated the vast majority of those complaining of insuficient audio quality of 128kbps tracks. The remaining bunch should focus their efforts on acquiring music on SACD, and building their home audio systems around tube preamps.

You cannot tell the difference between a 256kbps AAC and a 24-bit 192kHz SACD on a crowded subway train (or a busy city street).

Nov 25, 08 - 11:40 am Comment from: Predrag

R2:

Your argument does bring a point that lingers somewhere in the back of my mind. While Jobs has publicly called for abolition of DRM in music, and has continued to publicly complain about the labels' insistence on DRM, there is no question that FairPlay played a role (how important is for a debate) in solidifying the market position of the iPod/iTunes ecosystem. I have no doubt that the final removal of DRM will have no impact on its position now, but one must ask oneself how much of a help did this ecosystem receive from being locked-in with DRM?

Thankfully, this is a moot point right now. It seems that DRM is going away from iTunes music (movies are another matter altogether). And this can only be good for the consumers. As for Apple and the iPod, their position is so solid, it would take something much more serious than removal of FairPlay to undermine it.

@ Predrag

I don't presume to know what the reason was for Apple not offering more DRM-free tracks, and nobody except those involved actually do know. My comment wasn't intended to suggest that I do, either. I only meant that iTunes has now joined the DRM-free crowd. And to say that Amazon has not unseated iTunes would suggest that you know the sales numbers. I'd love to see them.

That said, until today, it would have been ridiculous to purchase DRMed iTunes tracks when you could have gotten the same songs in higher quality and DRM-free on Amazon, maybe even for cheaper.

Nov 25, 08 - 11:55 am Comment from: HMCIV

My DRM cuffs are loose enough I never notice them really. Kinda like Napoleon exiled to his island... except for the poison.

Predrag: While Jobs has publicly called for abolition of DRM in music, and has continued to publicly complain about the labels' insistence on DRM, there is no question that FairPlay played a role (how important is for a debate) in solidifying the market position of the iPod/iTunes ecosystem.

That is almost certainly not the case, since only a relatively small minority of customers ever purchased any FairPlay-afflicted tracks.

Most people just rip their CDs and fill up the rest on file sharing.

FairPlay has done nothing but retard iTunes sales. That's it.

I have bought several iTunes Plus tracks but zero FairPlay tracks. And I'm happy to see that I can finally complete my collection if the other labels have indeed caved at long last.

@ping: "Most people" - which excludes those few that can not get themselves to stealing no matter how dirty some of these big record companies are.

Nov 25, 08 - 12:54 pm Comment from: Think

@Predrag and Ping

You must go back to version 1, 2 or 3 of iTunes. No store existed yet.

Just your own CDs, iPod and iTunes software.
Many people forget that iTunes supported other MP3 players at that time. They were: Creative Labs, the leader at the time, SonicBlue, Nike and Nakamichi.
So the iPod did have competition that also would work just fine in iTunes. That all changed with the store and version 4.

@Jordan

What? Do you live under a rock?

Just because YOU don't know why Apple doesn't offer more DRM-free tracks, doesn't mean Apple hasn't clear stated their position. Have you not read Steve Jobs' open letter about DRM from 2007? Check it out its the last of the "related articles".

Just remember, "ignorance of the law excuses no one". Due diligence!

Bob: "Most people" - which excludes those few that can not get themselves to stealing no matter how dirty some of these big record companies are.

No, it doesn't. People who exclusively have self-ripped versions of CDs they themselves own on their iPods are among the reasons why FairPlay never worked to enforce Apple's "monopoly".

That presumable "monopoly" simply exists because people want to own iPods, not because they're somehow "forced" to own them.

Jordan wrote:
"..it would have been ridiculous to purchase DRMed iTunes tracks when you could have gotten the same songs in higher quality and DRM-free on Amazon, maybe even for cheaper."

DRM free, yes, but not necessarily in higher quality. I can actually tell the difference between AAC 128 kbps and MP3 256 kbps, and AAC wins in my ear. If you can afford it, just download a few tracks from Cure's Disintegration album, for example. Lush background soundscape will assist you more I believe, than say, Dylan unplugged and mono. I have bought a few albums off Amazon special deals and some were decent, quite a few weren't. MP3 is a money waster unless you go for the song of the day values.

Speaking of which, I have found plenty of bargains on iTunes compared to the same item available on Amazon. So, don't write off iTunes completely. However, having DRM is annoying to me, and I don't care to rip them on a CD only to re-import them back on my library for each album. Someone had posted a solution to this once that didn't require a physical CD. I certainly would appreciate a lot if anyone could point me to that direction again.

Meanwhile, I have about 30,000 songs (many of which are ripped from CDs on AAC 320kbps and 48kHz standard) on my library if anyone's curious with a SimplifyMedia account.

krquet: Meanwhile, I have about 30,000 songs (many of which are ripped from CDs on AAC 320kbps and 48kHz standard) on my library if anyone's curious with a SimplifyMedia account.

Ripping CDs to 48khz would be a bad mistake — you'd get substantial aliasing artefacts due to the fact that CDs are natively encoded at 44.1khz. More is not always better, especially not in this case.

CDs should always be ripped to their native 44.1khz, preferably losslessly.

@ping
thank you for letting me know this. Albeit a bit late for me, but I do appreciate this. Live and learn everyday.
:o )

Hey, where in iTunes is Upgrade my tracks?

Nov 25, 08 - 01:47 pm Comment from: Dave

It seems that Apple is going through a conversion process regarding iTunes Plus. Yesterday, I clicked on the "Upgrade to iTunes Plus" link and it listed $19+ worth of songs (mostly Universal - Latin). The total $ amount was actually less than $.30 a song for the upgrade.

I clicked on the Upgrade All button and it failed with an error indicating that the items being purchased were no longer available in iTunes.

Today, I went to the home page in iTunes and the link for upgrading to iTunes Plus is gone (or at least I can't find it).

I expect that Apple will make an announcement one of these days...

@Rob:
I usually click on the iTunes plus link on the left pane of the iTunes store. If there are music to be upgraded from your library, iTunes will offer them to you. I was hoping, it would finally allow me to update my Peter Green's In The Skies album. But no luck so far. Good luck to you, btw.

MDN MW: who. Why not?

krquet: thank you for letting me know this. Albeit a bit late for me, but I do appreciate this. Live and learn everyday.

You are welcome!

Uh-oh, this is bad news for me - I no longer have an excuse to avoid buying songs from iTunes!


And I wonder how many people are going to try to spin this the way Jordan did - that Apple was somehow the one holding back from offering their songs DRM-free, and is now being dragged into "following" everyone else.

We all know how ridiculous that idea is, considering it was Steve's open letter which got things seriously rolling, followed by getting EMI on board with DRM-free music. And yet we've all seen people popping up around the internet, trying spread the idea that it was Apple who was reluctant to go DRM-free. Hard not to smell astroturf when you see those kinds of comments.

@ FUDsucker Proxy

I'm glad you found the few words in my post worth attacking, but the fact is that NOBODY knows who exactly is the reason why iTunes didn't have DRM-free sooner. I'm not saying Apple didn't want those songs, I'm just saying that for all we know, Apple had ridiculous demands that "the cartel" didn't want to meet. On the flip, you might be 100% right and "the cartel" was keeping them from Apple for kicks. I'm not saying one way or the other, other than we don't know.

@ krquet

I will have to check that out. I know the songs I get on Amazon are very good and in general a lot better than old DRMed songs I've bought in 128kbps. But you have peaked my interest and I'll check out that album you mentioned.

Yea now they do this after I've re-ripped my many thousands of iTMS tracks into high quality MP3's and volume level them using iVolume.

Guess the iTMS "Genius" and iTMS "mini-store" snitching on our music collections finally showed the labels we "don't like no stinking DRM!!"

The problem with automatic upgrading is it's all or nothing approach.

I rather make a playlist and upgrade just those songs.

Jordan : I'm just saying that for all we know, Apple had ridiculous demands that "the cartel" didn't want to meet.

The "ridiculous" assessment is coming from people who believe that fair use meant the end of civilization as we know it.

And the "demands" are coming from a company whose partners generally fare quite well if they don't insist on shooting their own feet off first...!

Nov 25, 08 - 05:14 pm Comment from: Predrag

Jordan,

I feel your need to confront those who use derogatory tone when arguing against you. However, your issue is with that tone, where you have an argument, and not with substance, where you don't.

For several years, we have been seeing statements, made by high-level executives from music labels, about the danger of Apple gaining complete control over music distribution business. These cartels had several decades where they had complete ownership over all distribution channels and modes. They controlled every aspect of it. In comes Apple, with their 'One Price Fits All' model, unbundles their crown jewel, the Album, and becomes a runaway hit with consumers. If you read any of the trade publications in music and entertainment business in general, you would have seen numerous articles lamenting the perceived danger of Apple taking completely over. Labels kept trying very hard to prevent that from happening. During past year alone, there were numerous attempts at launching alternative download services (From Amazon, to the "Comes with Music" deal with Nokia), all in a desperate effort to dislodge Apple. Other than EMI, nobody else wanted to offer DRM-free tracks to the largest online retailer. Having been burnt by the Napster nightmare, they had assumed Apple's customers would immediately begin pirating the DRM-free files, so they balked. When the EMI deal proved it wasn't happening, they started plotting an alternative way, again, to knock Apple off their dominant position.

It is clear that music cartels just don't get it. Bundling, premium pricing and other predatory, blackmailing sales methods just won't work in the nascent downloads market. Not until majority of people are used to, and comfortable, buying music online. Only then could they begin experimenting with pricing, packaging, special offers, etc. For now, the only way to attract masses to the download model is to offer simple flat price for everything. It seems that they are actually beginning to get it.

@think:
"So the iPod did have competition that also would work just fine in iTunes. That all changed with the store and version 4."

Nothing was taken away in iTunes 4. It still supported everything it did before then.

Nov 25, 08 - 08:30 pm Comment from: BiZarRo BaLlmEr

I'm still amazed when people hold Apple accountable for non DRM tracks.

It's record label restrictions not Apple. Never thought the record labels would play nice with Apple actually.

Nov 25, 08 - 09:46 pm Comment from: ken1w

> It's record label restrictions not Apple. Never thought the record labels would play nice with Apple actually.

Actually, the record labels were doing Apple a favor by "forcing" Apple to offer DRM'd files at 128 kbps. Now, if everything goes "iTunes Plus," Apple has to double their bandwidth to offer 256 kbps files at the same price AND cut the compatibility tie between iPods and the iTunes Store. If any AAC-capable music player can now play songs from the iTunes Store, Apple will be operating a music download service that helps the competition sell more music players that are not iPods. I don't think Apple will have problem with such competition, but Apple will have lost one advantage. At some point, Apple might as well outsource the iTunes music sales business to Amazon.

Nov 26, 08 - 12:06 pm Comment from: Dave

Another day, another story...

Just to followup with my previous post, the iTune Plus link has returned to the Quick Links section of iTunes, but it now tells me that my library is up to date (2 days ago it listed $19+ worth of upgrades, but wouldn't let me purchase them).

Nov 26, 08 - 01:43 pm Comment from: twilightmoon

@ Shadowself

ONLY one kind of "lossless" it's called "live music"

Anything else isn't lossless.

Period.

Nov 26, 08 - 01:47 pm Comment from: twilightmoon

ken1w: "At some point, Apple might as well outsource the iTunes music sales business to Amazon."

Are you insane? If people are using ITMS, that means they are using iTunes. If they are using iTunes, they are using iPod software already.

Which you can plug any model iPod into and load it with song.

Also iPhones, and Apple TV, and any future hardware Apple decides that they want to portal through iTunes.

Amazon's music store does this exactly how?

@ Jake, Yes starving artists, session musicians only get a pittance of royalties for tracks that they have performed in and only for fifty years whilst the singer & song writer get paid royalties for seventy years and a further payment to their heirs after they are dead same as authors.

Session musicians are lobbying the EU to elevate their royalty period to the same as authors, singer and songwriters.

In the meantime, a lot of session musicians including classical performers end up having a second job to sustain them after their performing days are over.

Starving artists? YES!!! Last word on this headliner.

Nov 30, 08 - 08:17 pm Comment from: ken1w

@ twilightmoon

> Are you insane? If people are using ITMS, that means they are using iTunes.

My comment was meant partly as a joke, but I can see Apple partnering with Amazon so that they handle the servers and downloads. Apple customers will still go through iTunes to access the content, but iTunes is just a specialized web browser. It can simply connect to servers operated by Amazon, and they can handle the transaction.