CodyStaub dot com

While browsing around I found out that iTunes announced last week that they are now selling a DRM-free version of certain titles (I assume all will be added soon) called iTunes Plus. The Plus titles cost 30 cents more at $1.29 a pop, but you are free to put them on as many devices as you want. Did Apple really crumble and give-in to all those that whine about DRM not being fair to users? Not exactly, there’s a catch. Whenever you buy a song from the iTunes Store, your information (email, username, etc) is tagged in the file for the DRM to work correctly. The drawback with iTunes Plus, although it is DRM-free, is that all that information is still stored within the file. This means that if you share your music with a friend and they share with a friend and so on, you’re also sharing all your information. Kind of a neat trick huh? This lets you have the freedom to put the music you purchase on any device you want, but unless you want your info out there for everyone to see, you’ll keep it to yourself.

Personally I agree with this strategy, but I’m sure lots of people will be raising hell over it. Already I’ve read one article that seems to be against Apple’s new format, but if you read his user’s comments you’ll find a lot of them take the same stance I do. Read the article here: iTunes Plus: DRM-free, but Invades Your Privacy.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 5th, 2007 at 10:41 am and is filed under Cool Music Tuesday, Rambling.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.