Friday, June 01, 2007

 

Thank You Apple

In a masterful move, Apple has struck a deal with struggling major music label EMI, to sell their music on iTunes without the troublesome, annoying digital rights management (DRM) encoded into it.

The songs available under Apple's new "iTunes Plus" service will be AAC encoded, but will not have any restrictions as to where you can play them. For instance, with the older-style iTunes songs, you could only really play them on your PC or Mac, or on your iPod. You couldn't use any other portable music players or software to listen to your music.

Now that has all changed. You can listen to these AAC songs (similar to the MP3 format) on any player that can play AAC, which is most of them. Not just iPods anymore.

These new song formats cost a little more ($1.29 vs $.99), but the additional freedom is worth more. Plus, they are recorded at a higher quality, making playback very close to CD-quality.

I want to say THANK YOU to Apple from the bottom of my heart. I sure this was a harrowing negotiation with EMI, and I'm sure you had to be patient through all kinds of foot-dragging, wailing and gnashing of teeth, but you did it. We, your customers and lovers of music, appreciate it. I am certain that the success that Apple and EMI will experience as a result of this groundbreaking move will encourage the rest of the music industry to follow suit and then, hopefully, the movie industry as well.

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