Comments on: What’s the deal with DRM?

By: Jason

Jason — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 09:18:43 +0000

DRM-free tracks might be cool and all, but you’re paying more for that gained “freedom.” DRM or no, I refuse to buy music from iTunes until they offer music in a higher quality than 128kbps. I’m not asking for an ALAC standard, but V2 files aren’t that large and are of much higher quality than what iTunes currently offers.

By: felecia anderson

felecia anderson — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 00:56:54 +0000

a week ago i bought a converter online for 34 bucks. It was called sound taxi. I used it to transfer my 2800 songs in itunes to windows media player, so i could listen to them on a different mp3 player. It took 3.5 days to complete the task but it worked.

By: George

George — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 15:47:42 +0000

DRM only gives pain to the users that buy their music. All the others can have their music free.

And as I buy my music, was about time someone stop this joke. DRM isn’t about protection. Is to give pain to legitimate users.
Glad Apple start it, hope others will follow too.

To the user said CD’s are free from DRM. Has ever heared about rootkits? And CD’s are protected too.

By: Darren

Darren — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 09:02:01 +0000

I think Apple are just trying to copy Amazon now. Amazon launched the MP3 store first and now Apple are copying to try and keep up. They’ve realised that people are fed up with being forced to buy an Apple iPod or iPhone to listen to their iTunes on the move, when there are cheaper standard MP3 players out there. I think though Apple are being really cheeky asking for 30c to unprotect the music now. That’s like mobile phone companies who charge you to unlock a mobile phone, but here we’re talking about music files. Stuff that off there are ways to remove the DRM protection anyway if you Google it, which if you have a lot of DRM protected stuff from Apple might be cheaper. I started using Amazon MP3 store before Apple announced they were removing the DRM, and I think I’m going to carry on using that and not switch back to iTunes as Amazon were the ones that brought about the revolution, if Amazon hadn’t launched the MP3 store in the UK do we really think that Apple would have removed DRM from there songs?

By: Aaron

Aaron — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 04:25:46 +0000

Let’s hope Microsoft takes a hint here. Good job Apple for making our online experience a bit less frustrating and miserable

By: pien8tr

pien8tr — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 23:13:54 +0000

i think $0.30 is ridiculous for music i already bought.

By: Steven

Steven — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 23:13:09 +0000

I’ve never understood people complaining about DRM and bitrates – you know what’s DRM free and comes at the best quality bitrate possible? CDs! And they also come in a nice little box with booklets sometime containing interesting information, photos and lyrics. People have forgotten how to listen to music. Sitting in front of a computer clicking away and hearing the odd tune out of context from it’s tracklist brethren through a pair of crappy speakers. That’s no way to appreciate music. And iPods – don’t get me started, abomination to music. Not so much the iPods themselves, but Apple earphones are just dreadful. Try listening to anything you’ve been used to listening to as an mp3/ma4 on CD on a proper stereo or decent headphones and you’ll think you’re listening to a completely different version of the same song – so much of the music is lost.

By: Topher

Topher — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 21:46:42 +0000

I’m not a fan of the upgrade price. 30 cents (1/3 the cost of the original song) just to convert it to DRM free? Most folks don’t care about the higher bit rate – they just want the right to play the music they purchased on any digital device. The higher bit rate is Apple’s excuse for charging people for something they really should be giving the customers.

I’m Apple’s not the only one to blame – record companies are probably seeing most of the revenue generated by this scheme. And they wonder why people choose to steal music.

If I were a famous musician, I would be pissed to hear that someone is being charged for music of mine that they’ve already purchased.

Personally, after 4 years of continued support for iTunes, I am switching to Amazon. While I will continue to purchase Apple computers and iPods, I feel the music store has swindled me, and doesn’t value me as a long time customer who helped turn them into the #1 music retailer in the U.S. I’m not going to continue supporting a venture who chooses to punish loyal customers.

By: Thomas

Thomas — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 21:29:27 +0000

So I read the iTunes Plus FAQs and it said you could only burn the same playlist to a CD 7 times. So does that mean if you create different playlists each time, you can burn your purchased songs as many times as you want? Is there any way you can check how many times you’ve burned a specific song to a CD?

Also, does anyone know any programs to remove DRM from my iTunes music files?

By: Chollie

Chollie — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 17:45:04 +0000

PS I do find that iTunes is the best overall music management system. I “import” or rip CDs and burn them with it. I just make sure I set the controls so the tracks are imported in MP3 format, which is playable on more machines than whatever format (M4P, or something like that) iTunes uses.

I like the Roxio program too, but it takes up too much memory on my four-year-old PC. I have to spring for a new one some day, maybe after Windows 7 replaces Vista.