SillyDog701

[Antony]

Has anybody read about how Apple is revising its iTunes Plus prices from $1.29/song to $0.99/song, the same as the current DRMed tracks?

I read it, but Apple has not officially announced the change.

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[Antony]

Steve Jobs confirmed this during an interview with The Wall Street Journal.

n an interview, Apple CEO Steve Jobs said music on iTunes Plus – the portion of Apple's online music store featuring songs without digital rights management, or DRM, anti-copying software – will feature the reduced price later today or tomorrow.

(...)

Songs on iTunes Plus originally came at a premium though: 30% more than the standard 99 cent song price for tracks long available with DRM. "It's been very popular with our customers, and we're making it even more affordable," Mr. Jobs said.

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[Antony]

It's official!


Apple launched iTunes Plus in late May this year. iTunes Plus songs provides twice the bitrate (256 kbps AAC encoding) and completely no DRM (digital rights management) for just 30 cents more. Today, Apple has slashed the price to just 99 cents for all iTunes Plus songs.

Besides EMI's digital catalogue, iTunes Plus now includes artists from Sub Pop, Nettwerk, Beggars Group, IODA, The Orchard and many more.

Apple Hot News:

Offering customers the largest catalog of DRM-free music in the world, Apple today expanded iTunes Plus to more than two million tracks while at the same time lowering the price of those tracks to just 99 cents. In addition to artists from EMI’s digital catalog, iTunes Plus now includes artists from Sub Pop, Nettwerk, Beggars Group, IODA, The Orchard and many others. All iTunes Plus tracks feature DRM-free music with high-quality 256 kbps AAC encoding, offering audio quality virtually indistinguishable from the original recordings

You can download free weekly music iTunes Store legally, yours to keep.

One disadvantage about iTunes Plus songs though, is that the songs are twice the file size of regular 128 kbps AAC song.

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[richard mitnick]

I played around with iTunes a bit and then dropped it.

First, I will not buy DRM protected music, I want to be able to copy it from HDD to HDD and to my mp3 players.

Second, there was very little iTunes Plus (M4A) unprotected music available.

Third, while I was on the iTunes plus page, if I then did a search, I was taken back out of the iTunes Plus page w/o being notified.

Last, I found the same music that was DRM only in iTunes to be available in mp3 unprotected at Amazon at a good high bit rate.

I am told that Apple's M4P files are better quality than mp3. But, at my age, I cannot hear the difference.

>>RSM

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[Fulvio]

I have been a long time subscriber of iTunes, and, still download some music. As far as I am concerned, the only place to download music is eMusic.
One gets .mp3 files, which cost me less than 24c/song. In addition, there are daily free songs.
The quality is what it is for .mp3 files, good enough for me. The selection is not so great, if you want everything, but I go after what they offer, and have more than enough. Many albums are offered at about the same time as iTunes.
By the way, if iTunes has ever offered more expensive, better quality music, it went right by me. This is the first time that I visited this newsgroup, so I am, a bit, behind the times.

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[richard mitnick]

No one can deny the quality or success of iTunes.

Please check for me in iTunes

The Who, "Thirty Years of Maximum R&B".

I would like to know if it is available in M4A (no DRM) and what is the cost.

Thanks,

>>RSM

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[Antony]

All music on iTunes Store is now in iTunes Plus (256-kbps AAC and DRM-free).

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[richard mitnick]

How about pricing?

At Amazon, I bought The Who, "Thirty Years of Maximum R&B" 95 tracks for US$39.00

>>RSM

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[Antony]

Music will now be available in three prices, 69 cents, 99 cents or $1.29 for new releases. Most albums will be priced at $9.99.

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