DRM-free music comes to iTunes

Music without DRM (digital rights management) technology has been made available on the iTunes store for the first time.

Apple recently announced that it would be providing high-quality, DRM-free tracks by record label EMI's artists on the iTunes store for a premium price and today launched iTunes Plus.

iTunes Plus includes tracks by artists such as the Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd and Frank Sinatra. However, if more record labels agree to go DRM-free, more music will be made available.

Steve Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, said: “We expect more than half of the songs on iTunes will be offered in iTunes Plus versions by the end of this year.”

For 99p per track, you can purchase DRM-free music with a bitrate of 256kbps (kilobits per second), as opposed to 128kbps. Standard iTunes tracks can be purchased for 79p per track at the lower bitrate.

Also, you can upgrade standard EMI iTunes tracks to iTunes Plus quality for 20p per song or £2 per album.

EMI was the first major record label to agree to drop DRM software, which is used to prevent people from making illegal copies of music they have purchased.

“This is a tremendous milestone for digital music,” said Eric Nicoli, chief executive of EMI. “Consumers are going to love listening to higher quality iTunes Plus tracks from their favourite EMI artists with no usage restrictions.”

http://www.apple.com/itunes/

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