As anticipated, Apple has announced that it is to offer a much larger chunk of its music catalogue free of copyright protection technology.

Some eight million of the 10 million tracks in the iTunes library will be offered free of DRM (digital rights management) protection through the iTunes Plus service.

Apple also announced a new three-tier pricing structure which will see tracks sold for 59p, 79p and 99p.

The pricing structure and freedom from DRM brings the iTunes offering more into line with Amazon's MP3 Store, which has been offering DRM-free tracks in the US since autumn 2007 and since December 2008 in the UK.

However, the new pricing won't be introduced until April 2009. The new DRM-free tracks will be available immediately.

Rival music retailer 7digital.com pointed out that iTunes still only offered music in the proprietary AAC format.

"Downloads from iTunes are still in the AAC file format regardless of whether they are DRM-free. So consumers who buy downloads from iTunes are still restricted to where they can play that music regardless of whether it's DRM-free or not," said Ben Drury of 7digital.com.

The announcement was made at the Macworld Conference and Expo currently taking place in San Francisco.

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www.apple.com/uk/itunes

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