[jdb8167]

dbater said:

30¢ a song for me would be approximately $700 to upgrade....

And there is no way to pick and choose what to upgrade. It is an all or nothing purchase. Your experience shows why buying large amounts of DRM music is probably not wise.

My upgrade price was $63. That was high enough. Any more (over $100) and I probably wouldn't have upgraded. It also shows why I stopped buying iTunes DRM music a couple of years ago. Now I can start buying again--at least until April at which time I will boycott anything that is over $0.99.

[MorrisTheCat]

jmincey said:

Given the continued market dominance of iTunes, I'm surprised that Jobs has chosen to bow to the demands of the record labels for multi-tiered pricing. Granted the labels were holding the DRM card over Jobs, but then when you look at the raw numbers, the iTunes Store didn't seem to suffer much vis-a-vis DRM-free offerings from Amazon et. al.

I wonder if this will further embolden the record labels now that Apple will not seem so invincible in the music arena.

In any event, maybe this particular decision will be win-win for all parties concerned -- consumers included.

Jeff Mincey

We don't know the whole back story here. Perhaps Apple has some data showing that they have actually lost some sales to the likes of Amazon MP3 or others. Its not impossible. In fact, I've seen some scenarios where Amazon got a sale and Apple did not.
One small example: where I work, we have a department that gives bi-yearly Keynote presentations to other departments, using a lot of imagery and music to convey the coming trends for the company's offerings. I'm often asked to help out with the music editing portion, trimming tracks down to a certain length to fit each section of the presentation. More and more the department members are turning to online music sources for files. Unfortunately, iTunes Store is generally out of the running because you can't open and edit the tracks. They're locked when trying to access them from almost any music editing app I've tried. So, Amazon gets the sales of those tracks. While this example is only a drop in the bucket, I'm sure we aren't the only ones wanting to use music tracks in ways that the DRM doesn't allow.

It seems to me Apple gave in to stay competitive, but if anything, it took a while to ensure that "most" tracks would actually end up being cheaper ($0.69) than they were before. That was probably the compromise: You can have variable pricing, as long as it ends up staying low priced for most tracks.

[Grapho]

jmincey said:

Given the continued market dominance of iTunes, I'm surprised that Jobs has chosen to bow to the demands of the record labels for multi-tiered pricing. Granted the labels were holding the DRM card over Jobs, but then when you look at the raw numbers, the iTunes Store didn't seem to suffer much vis-a-vis DRM-free offerings from Amazon et. al.

I wonder if this will further embolden the record labels now that Apple will not seem so invincible in the music arena.

In any event, maybe this particular decision will be win-win for all parties concerned -- consumers included.

Jeff Mincey

I think you are not considering what was going on in Norway. This makes the iTunes music compatible with any player, therefor making the litigation against Apple null.

Although I don't think this one issue was the determining factor, I still think it played a role.

[mdixon]

Well, unless Apple is willing to cut me a break, it's going to cost me some big bucks to upgrade all of these DRM iTunes tracks to iTunes Plus. Let's see...850 songs at 30 cents each...$255. Why do I have to do all or nothing?
It would be nice if iTunes were updated to show in my Library which songs are eligible to be updated, and allow me to pick and choose to update certain songs...not my entire library (as the iTunes Store limits me to).

[cphoffman42]

Not just Norway - it also helps to short circuit some of the claims that have been raised against Apple in private antitrust suits in the US - that tracks bought through the iTunes store can only be played on the iPod, reinforcing the iPod's dominance. Though I would actually expect the suits to continue with the focus shifted to recuperating the $.30 upgrade fee.

[gmcalpin]

It might be more trouble than it's worth, but could you (temporarily) just REMOVE the songs you didn't want to upgrade, in order to only upgrade only a selection of songs?

[MorrisTheCat]

dbater said:

30¢ a song for me would be approximately $700 to upgrade....

Ouch! Sorry about that. It will only cost me a little under $50 to upgrade my library, which is doable. You must have purchased a LOT of tracks from iTunes. Wow.

[mdixon]

I think that upgrade option is based on your purchases. That's where Apple is getting the list of songs to upgrade...not from what is in your library. So there's no way to remove them temporarily.

[Phelps]

I continue to be deeply irritated by the ITunes Plus upgrade policy. All or nothing is about $73 currently for us. I would absolutely upgrade SOME songs and albums - but have no interest in upgrading others. I upgraded some music early on after ITunes Plus was introduced, but not since for this reason.

To be even more snarky, they are now selling the music for the exact same price we originally bought it - why do we have to pay to upgrade it at all? To add insult to injury "complete my album" is turned off for any songs I purchased that are included in the upgrade - so I upgrade everything or I need to repurchase songs to get the album.

Kudos for the expansion of DRM-free content, but Apple needs to rethink this!!! At least let me upgrade on a song by song or album by album basis.

[Strongblade]

-

[pragone]

I was hoping I'd be able to buy music & movies from around the world. You know, global village & all. No DRM is great, but frustrating that the record, movie, and TV companies are all stuck in the dark ages and putting up senseless borders in the electronic realm. Still must have a billing address in the particular country to buy music that's available to that other country. Not Apple's fault at all, but don't enough people see how incredibly strangely artificial that restriction is???

[Phelps]

Note: the post that this responds to was retracted because of a misimpression about the options available

Hi Strongblade.

I defy you to show me how that is possible. There is no purchase option in the song list on the Upgrade page, and when I try to purchase a song that this effects I get the following (overly lengthy) message:
"You have already purchased the song "XXX" as a DRM-Protected file. Would you like to add it to your cart? You can upgrade your library and this song will cost less to upgrade than to repurchase. However, you will have to upgrade yor other previously purchased music now available in ITunes Plus at the same time..."
It goes on in the same vein.

Apple is definitely not supporting individual song or album upgrades.

Phelps

[folklore]

chavonuevo said:

$.30 to upgrade each song? Sorry, but F-you.

Ditto. There's no way I'm going to pay to "upgrade" songs that I already own. It would be far cheaper for me to burn them to CD and rip 'em with no DRM (I usually buy complete albums, not singles). I know I'd lose a tad of quality, but it would get the job done.

Still, I'm glad that iTunes music is DRM-free (or soon will be). It's a smart move for everyone involved.

[Steve_S]

MorrisTheCat said:

We don't know the whole back story here. Perhaps Apple has some data showing that they have actually lost some sales to the likes of Amazon MP3 or others.

There's absolutely no question that Apple has been losing sales due to DRM. It's just a question of how much. For some, they went to Amazon, others may have bought the CDs while others may have resorted to pirating. Either way, this is a very good thing for Apple. It's about time! DRM is a consumer hostile solution. I for one will be returning to the iTunes store for music purchases.

Quote

It seems to me Apple gave in to stay competitive, but if anything, it took a while to ensure that "most" tracks would actually end up being cheaper ($0.69) than they were before. That was probably the compromise: You can have variable pricing, as long as it ends up staying low priced for most tracks.

Yeah, I don't have much respect for the leadership of the music industry. They continue to shoot themselves in the foot. As you mentioned, in the process, they may likely have made this push only to decrease their overall revenue. Bravo!