Apple charges 20p a track for DRM-free upgrades

 

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By Barry Collins

Posted on 7 Jan 2009 at 07:53

Apple is charging British customers 20p per track to convert their iTunes purchases to the new DRM-free versions.

The iPod maker announced yesterday that it had signed a deal with all four major record labels to make the entire iTunes catalogue DRM-free by the end of the spring.

Eight million tracks are already being sold on iTunes this morning without DRM, at the same 79p price they were previously. The new tracks also offer higher sound quality, with a bit-rate of 256Kb/sec compared to the old 128Kb/sec.

However, those who have already purchased DRM-laden music via iTunes will have to pay to upgrade their libraries.

Individual track upgrades cost 20p - just over a quarter of the original track price. Whole albums, meanwhile, cost 25% of the current sale price to upgrade.

It means that people who've previously bought songs from the iTunes Store are once again at a disadvantage to those who simply ripped a CD, which wouldn't include any DRM and could have been copied at the bit rate of the user's choice.

Users logging into iTunes this morning will find an Upgrade My Library option in the Quick Links on the iTunes Store page, from where they can upgrade all the relevant songs in their library at the same time.

The new iTunes Plus tracks don't have any burn limits and will play on any device that supports the AAC format. The username of the iTunes account holder is embedded in the track's metadata, however, raising the possibility that Apple or the music labels may pursue those who upload the DRM-free music to file-sharing sites.