Non-DRMed songs on iTunes
Well, it looks like Hell has frozen over - iTunes is now selling the entire EMI catalog without the digital rights management (DRM) wrapper that makes them only playable on an iPod owned by a single user. This is a pretty interesting move, and goes along with something that Apple prez Steve Jobs wrote recently called Thoughts on Music. It's a gripping saga, with a buxom blonde (Steve Jobs) with wild, flowing locks and a black turtleneck, tied to the railway tracks by the top-hatted, moustachioed Baron Von Curlychops (the record companies). The lovely Steve would gift us with endless DRM-free music on iTunes, but she's held hostage by the evil villain! Can anyone help her? Can anyone save the day?
The analogy breaks down with this latest news, as Steve has essentially freed herself from her bonds by doing a deal with the bad guy, which doesn't make much sense in the context of the old style silent film, and raises the question of what the train represented, or indeed the tracks themselves. Who are the consumers? Where's the hero? Anyway, Tunes now offers EMI's tracks from iTunes in a 256kbit non-DRMed AAC format, which notably isn't MP3. According to the AAC Wikipedia page, AAC will play on the Zune, the SanDisk Sansa e200R, the PSP, some Sony Walkmans, some Sony Ericsson mobiles, some Nokia mobiles and some Palm OS PDAs, as well as iPods (duh). This certainly isn't the expected every mp3 player in the world support that the MP3 format would've provided, but it's okay. The tracks are also more expensive than their DRM-laden counterparts, which is like selling a bike with a lock on it for less than the bike by itself. Weird restrictions like these make what should be a day of wild rejoicing with stormtroopers being given wedgies and thrown off balconies, into a moment where people half-shout and then sit back down again, their eyes narrowing in vague suspicion. There's a pretty great article on Engadget called Apple and EMI ditching DRM is good, but it's not good enough that lays it all out pretty well, but I feel like a bit of a dick for being negative about something that's obviously a big leap forward. Now if only every other music store would follow suit...
BoingBoing has a metric tonne of links on the story and its history in their post as well, in case you have no idea of what I'm talking about. You're probably asleep by this stage, but there it is regardless.