DRM-Free Tunage! Will Apple's "iTunes Plus" Bring DRM-Free Music Downloads into the Mainstream?

For those of you not familiar with the term "tunage," it is a slang word used to describe music content. The word is used much like "flickage" as it describes movie content. Similarly, references to movies with British Secret Agent 007 are called "bondage." You get the idea. Now for an update on "tunage" without DRM: As you may (or may not) recall, DRM is the coding imbedded in most downloaded songs that restricts how the buyer can use the music. This concept was illustrated in my earlier post. Yesterday, as promised a few months ago, Apple® has opened iTunes® Plus, an area for downloading higher-quality, DRM-free music. For a $0.30 per song premium ($1.29 instead of the standard $0.99), the iTunes community can download some songs at a higher quality 256 kbps bit rate, but using AAC encoding without the DRM restrictions. Currently, the major record label supporting this endeavor is EMI, releasing thier entire digital catalog in this manner. This includes singles and albums from Coldplay, The Rolling Stones, Norah Jones, Frank Sinatra, Joss Stone, Pink Floyd, and John Coltrane.

The original versions of the songs will still be available for the standard $0.99. For those songs already in one's collection, it is possible to upgrade previously purchased protected EMI songs for an additional 30 cents. Most albums cost $3.00 to upgrade. Since Apple is always about making things simple, you can see from the image at the left how they are trying to make is easy to upgrade.

While this is a great first-step, it is still yet to be seen whether other major record labels will jump on board. It will not be for a lack of effort as Steve Jobs, Apples' CEO, is doing his best to lure record labels in this direction. Jobs stated that, “we expect more than half of the songs on iTunes will be offered in iTunes Plus versions by the end of this year.” This indicates a clear expected trend toward purchasing music content without usage restrictions. Additionally, the fact that Amazon.com has announced their entry into this arena obviously brings some validity to the concept. Before the end of the year, Amazon is expected to launch their music download store with all music available in the DRM-free form. With this kind of horsepower behind the effort, I would tend to believe that you will see record labels making the switch and permitting the sale of this new, more flexible content.

The question for Apple and Amazon is whether this concept will keep folks away from the monthly fee packages offered by competitors such as Yahoo and Napster? These monthly fees give practically unlimited access to music, only limited by the size of the on-board memory of the individuals player. Only time will tell if the unrestricted music will be more valuable to the consumer. For the original press release, click here.