The iTunes Store now has DRM free songs! If you don’t know what DRM is, it’s what prevents you from using your legally purchased music on another device, like the Microsoft Zune can play the AAC format that music from iTunes comes in, but the Zune can’t play the music that’s been encrypted with Apple’s DRM. If you buy the from iTunes designated as “iTunes Plus,” it’s DRM free, so you’re free to play it with anything that can understand the file format. The songs are also double the quality of the standard songs purchased, but they’re also $0.30 more. I can live with the price increase for the benefits of being able to play my music wherever.
Right now the songs are only from EMI’s catalog. If you go to the iTunes Plus section in iTunes, you can see how many songs in your library can be converted. It can then download and replace the songs in your library, giving you the nice option to delete the replaced files or place them in a folder on your desktop. I don’t think the original songs even have to be on your computer either. I am on a new computer and most of my songs are on my iPod and not on my computer and it’s getting songs I know I hadn’t copied over. The store seems to be getting hit hard, so it will take some patience. I’m getting “error 504” a lot, but the songs are coming down slowly.
Maybe now I can get that streaming server going for my home that I wanted to set up a while back. I abandoned it because most of my music was DRMed.
[tags]iTunes, DRM, AAC, EMI, music, iPod[/tags]