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Apple To Grant All Labels DRM-Free Distribution
SexCaptain writes "MacRumors.com reveals a letter circulated by Apple to all producers of content for the iTunes Store, announcing that from May onward they can sell their music at higher quality and free of DRM. Hopefully this opens the doors for labels like Netwerk. This is a big step in the right direction, although it's unclear exactly what Apple means by 'higher quality,' and there is no mention of price changes. (Apple charges $0.30 more per song for DRM-free content from EMI and encodes it at 256K.) Quoting from the letter: 'Many of you have reached out to iTunes to find out how you can make your songs available higher quality and DRM-free," Apple wrote in the communication. "Starting next month, iTunes will begin offering higher-quality, DRM-free music and DRM-free music videos to all customers."
The album price is the same for DRM free, higher quality... $9.99 for most albums. That makes the convenience and lack of censorship worth every penny. It isn't like you can buy a single DRM free track from Walmart either.
Yeah, I use OS X... so sue me.
what Apple wants is their AAC to become the defacto standard over mp3.
AAC isn't Apple's codec. It's the MPEG group's replacement for MP3.