iTunes is going to be DRM-Free, but not free of DRM.

There's been a decent amount of coverage that iTunes is going to have a DRM free music catalog by the end of the 1st quarter of 2009. It's been a long time coming. While other competitors had the same CDs DRM free you had to beg the question of why iTunes had DRM on the same stuff. I think that it was an industry black horse, a competitor to give iTunes enough competition to reduce their leverage. But enough of that, it's all speculative anyway.

DRM'd content has been the norm on iTunes for 8 years as of the first of the month this year. They have made strides toward opening up their catalog, slowly at first and now seeming like a giant step forward today. The thing that bothers me in this is that now they've going for a truly open catalog, something that seems to give competitors a helping hand while the reality is that competitors have been getting the boot for a long time. From what I can find the iPod currently has a 70% market share of music players on the market, a daunting number but one now that can be separated by content and playing medium.

Sort of.

I started out with an iRiver iHP-120. While it definitely doesn't have the style of an iPod, it definitely has some seriously hardened exterior. I make this point for this reason, the platform I purchased in 2003 had no DRM'd content on it, nor would it support it. The platform was based on codecs that did not contain DRM. During the 7+ years iPods became and remained dominant. Now, while the platform used to be music, now iTunes contains many other markets. Video and applications are now revenue making for them, so they don't have to be so tight-grasping anymore of a few of their markets.

But here's the thing that makes me realize that DRM on the iPod is not gone, not even from the music section. You will need to purchase your freedom from music DRM. They have implemented pricing tiers based on quality, and in that you could theoretically get a song based on the old tier of quality with a lower price than your already purchased song. It won't be a free ride, you will have to pay for the release of music you already own. A revenue stream that costs nothing in regards to the fact that you already have a license for playing that music, and that you only need the chains removed. I eventually dig get an iPod, two in fact, and as long as it supports DRM'd music, I don't see many making their libraries of 8 years entirely DRM free.

For example on this, here's what I have that iTunes is offering to free for me. Mind you. I've been using Amazon first because of the very fact that it's DRM free. It currently says that I have 194 songs that I can have upgraded to iTunes Plus. 13 Albums at that. The price for the upgrade of music I already own is $39.84. I'm a person that rarely uses iTunes, and to those that do I'm sure that price is going to be a lot more.

The only thing that I think would be truly fair in this regard is to remove the restrictions of DRM from the music that already exists once the catalog owners OK it. It would cost either nearly nothing to accomplish this, and to be honest it'd be the only "good-faith" deal I'd see coming. I just don't think that'll happen though.

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	Apple to end music restrictions	BBC News	Tue Jan 6	10
	iTunes To Offer DRM-Free Tracks ... At Variable Prices	RadioInk	Tue Jan 6	1
	All Songs in iTunes Music Store to be DRM Free	gecko85	Tue Jan 6	7