[Hurley42]

Still not a good enough reason to go back to purchasing from iTunes. I get my content elsewhere.

[darrensmith]

{quote:title=mathogre wrote:}There is one little problem. Rather than making all of the music DRM-free, they removed some that apparently couldn't be made DRM free. I know because there was an album I wanted to purchase that wasn't DRM-free. That album was "Hadra" from the group "Lumin." It's a middle-Eastern ambient album. The complete album had been previously available, albeit with encryption. Now it's not there. Brilliant.{quote}
Same. I have found several albums that were simply removed from the iTunes store, rather than updated to iTunes Plus.

[TeaEarleGreyHot]

I assume that "DRM-free" does not mean the copyright holders are putting the work in the public domain. So I wonder if really the news media OUGHT to be headlining this news as "Nuisance-free". Because although you can now use your copy for your own purposes without the hindrance of DRM tech, you are still not allowed to sell/give the music to others. Or even play it as a public performance, without an additional license. The wording of this as "DRM-free" however, while technologically accurate, may be legally misleading, and even encourage many people to become unwitting pirates. The music is still covered by copyright.

[henryhbk]

Yeah, I also have 480 songs waiting for upgrade. The statement seems slightly misleading. They are still coming out in dribs-and-drabs. When I called support, they told me that it will be this way, as the labels release them in DRM free format to them... In other words, no news here...

[scotts13]

pauli63 said:

For example: Pink Floyd The Wall. It's still available to purchase, but not for me to upgrade. What gives?

Dark Side of the Moon, too. Hmmm. So much for "all."

[leary]

TeaEarleGreyHot said:

I assume that "DRM-free" does not mean the copyright holders are putting the work in the public domain. So I wonder if really the news media OUGHT to be headlining this news as "Nuisance-free". Because although you can now use your copy for your own purposes without the hindrance of DRM tech, you are still not allowed to sell/give the music to others. Or even play it as a public performance, without an additional license. The wording of this as "DRM-free" however, while technologically accurate, may be legally misleading, and even encourage many people to become unwitting pirates. The music is still covered by copyright.

I fail to see what's misleading. DRM stands for digital rights management and has nothing to do with copyright or ownership. Never has. As a musician I've always been against DRM - my music is released through Magnatune and has been iTunes Plus from the beginning. But I take exception with copyright being a "nuisance". It's the only way for artists to defend their rights.

That said, what you can do with the music - now that it's free of the artificial lock of DRM - is controlled by it's usage license which differs from artist to artist, label to label. Most of my material for example has a Creative Commons license that allows you to use it in podcasts and the like.

But please remember that not all artists are multi-milionnaires who can withstand the pirating of their albums without blinking. Sometimes there's a fine line between the great publicity of viral marketing and never making a dime.

[Rhywun]

I too am wondering how the update to iTunes-Plus works now. I haven't tried in a long time, but if they're still asking for 0.30 to upgrade a song I already paid 0.99 for and currently sells for... 0.99, I'm going to have to say "No, thanks."

[mdawson]

Quote

TeaEarleGreyHot wrote:

>

Quote

The wording of this as "DRM-free" however, while technologically accurate, may be legally misleading, and even encourage many people to become unwitting pirates.

I would agree with leary here in that nothing is misleading. You were never legally permitted to use commercially released music as you please without the consent of the copyright holder. All DRM did was make music licensing cumbersome for otherwise law-abiding music buyers. People have always given copies of music to others despite the dubious legality of the activity since the advent of convenience recording. The music industry has tried to bar recording devices since the introduction of the cassette tapes.

As you stated yourself, music is still covered by copyright and that has always been the case. Making copies for anything other than personal use was illegal before digital downloads and nothing about that has changed. What DRM introduced were limits on those that legally acquired music by impeding the transferability of the music.

[fribhey]

pauli63 said:

I have 388 songs which take up 2.01GB that apparently aren't available to upgrade to iTunes Plus and therefore are forever in 128k AAC DRM. What are we supposed to do?

hmmm, maybe continue to enjoy them like you had been doing since you bought them?

[AppleHead]

The only thing I hated about DRM was the damned authorizing of computers. We have been through so many Macs, iPods, and iPhones since the dawn of iTunes Music Store that we are constantly running in to hassles with "Do you want to authorize this computer . . . " Trying to decide whether we want to de-authorize the one in the garage to make room for the new one in the kitchen, etc. It's just a major annoyance. I had hoped it would all go away, but it sounds like some tunes will continue to demand authorization on a new device because they won't be upgradable. Guess I'll just have to trash them. Why couldn't they have just declared amnesty on all previously purchased music and eaten the loss? That would eliminate authorization once and for all.

[hillstones]

[quote name='scotts13']
>

pauli63 said:

> For example: Pink Floyd The Wall. It's still available to purchase, but not for me to upgrade. What gives?
Dark Side of the Moon, too. Hmmm. So much for "all."

If anyone is a fan of Pink Floyd, they would have The Wall and Dark Side already on CD, long before digital downloads existed.

[pauli63]

I was looking forward to not having to authorize and de-authorize computers to stay in the 5 computer limit, not to mention upgrading to 256K encoding, which is a big deal with classical music. You can only de-authorize all your computers once a year, if for example, one of your hard drives goes kaput - DRM for me and others with many computers is a big hassle, There's also the possibility that the music we purchased legally will one day be unplayable. Be glad your mileage varies and DRM doesn't present any problems whatsoever for you. :-)

[hillstones]

AppleHead said:

The only thing I hated about DRM was the damned authorizing of computers. We have been through so many Macs, iPods, and iPhones since the dawn of iTunes Music Store that we are constantly running in to hassles with "Do you want to authorize this computer . . . " Trying to decide whether we want to de-authorize the one in the garage to make room for the new one in the kitchen, etc. It's just a major annoyance. I had hoped it would all go away, but it sounds like some tunes will continue to demand authorization on a new device because they won't be upgradable. Guess I'll just have to trash them. Why couldn't they have just declared amnesty on all previously purchased music and eaten the loss? That would eliminate authorization once and for all.

It is simple. Deauthorize a computer before you get rid of it, and authorize a new one. It is not that difficult. You can have 5 computers on one iTunes account.

[AppleHead]

Then there is replaced hard drives that go dead, the fact that we have more the five Macs in the family, it's always something. Yes, the actual process of authorizing or de-authorizing is simple in and of itself. But the fact that it keeps cropping up, and that a decision has to be made of which device to de-authorize makes it a nuisance. Frankly, it's not very Mac-like. More like the kind of annoying things that drive Windows users to Macs. Why leave loyal long time Mac users, those who made the iTMS the big success that it is, with this legacy of continuing annoyances long after the age of DRM has passed. Why not free automatic conversion for all music bought before a certain date at least, if not outright amnesty for all?