Re: [Fsuk-manchester] DRM: Beginning of the end?

[Andrew John Hughes]

2009/1/7 Lucy <address@hidden>:
> Good news in the fight against DRM, as Apple announce that iTunes will
> no longer sell tracks infected with DRM. Is this the beginning of the
> end for DRM though?
>
> * http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7813527.stm
> * 
> http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2009/01/06/apple-labels-both-win-with-drm-free-itunes-tiered-pricing
>
>
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It was kind of inevitable with Amazon selling the same stuff as
256kbps MP3s and Steve Jobs' stance on DRM (if you believe it).

For me this removes 1 of 3 reasons for not buying music from iTunes.
The other two being:

1.  iTunes is a piece of proprietary software for Mac OS and Windows
and AFAIK that's the only way of interacting with the store.  So it
would have to be released as Free Software and ported :)  The removal
of DRM makes this doable, although I doubt whether it's any more
likely.  Maybe they will now also remove the broken DTrace hack which
prevents it probing iTunes...
2.  If I'm going to buy music online, I want it the same quality as
what I'd buy on CD.  You're already losing out on the intangible
benefits you get from a CD in terms of packaging etc. (I never feel
like I'm getting anything if I'm buying a download).  Apple have a
format for this which ffmpeg supports.  It wouldn't be ideal but if
they sold in this format you could convert it ad nauseum to Ogg Vorbis
or FLAC without problem.  Even if the MP4s are now DRM-free, they are
still using lossy compression which means they will degrade in Ogg
Vorbis format and gain unnecessary bloat in FLAC.

A step in the right direction though...
-- 
Andrew :-)

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