Sharing your music just got a lot easier.
Leading music retailer Apple announced Tuesday it would eliminate anti-copying restrictions attached to most of the songs it sells online. Three of the four major music labels – Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group – agreed to eliminate digital rights management (DRM) software, which limits what users can do with music purchased through the iTunes Store – sharing, in particular.
The fourth major label, EMI, had already removed DRM from its songs, Apple announced.
iTunes customers will be able to remove DRM software from tracks they already purchased by selecting “Upgrade My Library to iTunes Plus” on the iTunes Store home page. iTunes charges 30 cents per song – 30 percent of the current album price for complete albums – and 60 cents for music videos. Rather than pick and choose what songs to upgrade, customers have to pay to convert everything at once.
The online music retailer also unveiled a pricing plan that would make hit songs, like Lady Gaga’s top-selling single “Just Dance,” more expensive. On the flip side, less popular tracks would be cheaper.
Labels will be allowed to set their own costs with Apple’s proposed three-tiered pricing structure. Most songs in the company’s 10 million song catalog will drop from 99 cents to 69 cents starting in April. New releases and hit songs will jump to $1.29.
Cheaper prices aren’t just better for potential purchasers – they could potentially give a boost to fledgling bands without big hits, said Erik Grossfield, a middler music industry major and coordinator for the concert series sponsored by the Music and Entertainment Industry Student Association, MEISA Live. Lower prices could mean more sales, he said.
The three-tiered pricing structure would also benefit customers whose musical preferences are off the mainstream map.
“I don’t really listen to top ten hits, so it shouldn’t be a problem,” said Teryn Kogurd, a freshman psychology major.
The prices of TV shows and movies will not change, Apple said, and will continue to have DRM protection.
Apple’s announcement came Tuesday, Jan. 6, at its annual Macworld conference in San Francisco. The company’s CEO Steve Jobs, who last week announced he was suffering from a hormone disorder that caused him to lose a significant amount of weight, did not speak at the conference. Instead, Philip W. Schiller, the company’s senior vice president for worldwide marketing, made the announcement.
Amazon.com, which also sells music online, does not put DRM software on the tracks it sells.
Also starting in April, iPhone users will be able to purchase songs using the 3G network, compared with having to find a wi-fi hotspot, which is how the feature works now.
Even tough Apple customers will now be able to share music with as many people as they want, that doesn’t make it legal. Copyright law limits sharing music, and since iTunes embeds user information into purchased files, it is possible to track down people who illegally share or upload songs.
Grossfield said he thought it was refreshing to see corporations that sell music are finally starting to readjust their business practices.
“It’s nice to see larger companies like that, with the backing of the labels behind them,” he said. “They’re finally starting to see that the old model is kind of dead.”
