If you remember back to January, Apple stated that iTunes would be DRM-free and have a tiered pricing system in place within the coming months. This is now a reality.
All the music available on the iTunes Store is now in 256Kbps AAC encoding, which is of a similar sound quality to original recordings. Apple had been in the process of converting the huge library since the Macworld Expo keynote, but now the crossover has been completed.
Phil Schiller also mentioned a new pricing scheme for the store, which has also gone live today. The new structure features three tiers; $0.69, $0.99, $1.29. There’s no set pattern as to which songs will be at which tier, but I would imagine popularity will play its part. The top tracks for the charts will aim for the higher pricing, while more selective music tastes will use the lower. This isn’t a plan from Apple to gain more money from us though, as Phil Schiller also stated that more songs would be priced at $0.69 than at $1.29.
You should see these changes available as you browse the iTunes store. It’s moments like these where it pays off for having strange music tastes—hopefully I’ll find myself some deals.
You can also upgrade your entire library to DRM-free music, by upgrading to iTunes Plus from within the iTunes Store. There’s a cost involved for each track, but it’s up to you whether it’s worth it.
It seems there are a lot of albums now suddenly missing. This is no doubt down to those albums not yet securing iTunes Plus versions for some reason, and so for iTunes music to become 100% DRM free, the best thing was to remove them.
I wonder if we'll ever see DRM free TV shows and films.