Steve Jobs' Open Letter ... succeeded?

jay pettitt on 5/4/2007 at 06:51

Quote Posted by User123abc

And I really like that site, magnatune, because of their slogan: "we're not evil!"

And there was me liking all the pretty music.

EZ-52 on 5/4/2007 at 13:08

I dont see what the fuss of all this drm free music from iTunes is all about.

The Music that's Downloaded still gonna be limited to iPod, and a select few MP3 players and mobile phones. The majority of non iPod mp3/4 players only play mp3 or WMA, and sony's will Play ATRAK (and in a rare instance ogg).

And are you sure its DRM free? I was under the impression it still had DRM, just the restrictions were relaxed, because you still need a player which supports DRM protected music to play it on. Correct me if im wrong.

Headcleaner on 5/4/2007 at 13:18

Everything on ITunes sounds terrible, the 'higher bitrate' still isn't high enough. I'll stick to buying albums from artists I like, thank you.

David on 5/4/2007 at 13:20

Quote Posted by Headcleaner

I'll stick to buying albums from artists I like, thank you.

Personally I enjoy buying albums by artists that I really hate.

Matthew on 5/4/2007 at 13:26

EZ-52, as far as I can read it, the songs will have no DRM, but DRMed versions will still be available at the original price point. I would also presume that most converters can change AAC to mp3 fairly easily?

As for everything on iTunes sounding 'terrible', I personally don't think so, but there you go.

Louis Cypher on 5/4/2007 at 13:31

Changing from a lossy format to another lossy format is pretty dumb though.

Matthew on 5/4/2007 at 13:36

Not if it makes it work on your generic mp3 player, I would think.

Aerothorn on 6/4/2007 at 16:37

That's good news.

I still like to have physical copies myself, mind you - but even if I didn't I wouldn't use iTunes for the DRM (I don't use an iPod) and the low bitrate (128 KPS is noticably worse on high quality headphones/sound-systems).

I'd debate 256 KPS being indistinguishable - it is in most circumstances, of course, but an audiophile with an amp and a good pair of headphones can probably tell, particulary depending on the type of music.

Oh well, at least there is Tunebite to convert the music that is DRMed.

Mingan on 6/4/2007 at 16:53

Thing is, the 256kbps tunes are AAC, not MP3, so there's a significant difference in quality. And now those tunes ARE DRM-free. As in, there's none of it, at all. Of course it only applies to EMI-signed bands.

mrPither on 6/4/2007 at 20:46

I will buy something immediately when this becomes available, just out of principle. This is the kind of service I want to support.

What we need now on, that is still missing in iTunes, is to be able to browse and sort the music store catalog by the music company. We need a new button that says: show me everything by EMI, and screw the rest.