It was bound to happen. After years of controversy with the music labels Apple has finally won the DRM war. As Philip Schiller announced at Macworld, starting today, all four major music labels—Universal Music Group, Sony BMG, Warner Music Group and EMI, along with thousands of independent labels, are now offering their music in iTunes Plus, Apple’s DRM-free format with higher-quality 256 kbps AAC.
Also, in April, Apple will introduce a new pricing scheme on iTunes based on what the music labels charge the company. As Apple announced in a press statement, songs on iTunes will be available at one of three price points: 69 cents, 99 cents and $1.29, with most albums still priced at $9.99.
Digital rights management schemes, such as Apple's FairPlay technology or Microsoft’s Certified for Vista, had the purpose to limit how many times users can copy their music and which devices they can play them on.
But in February 2007, in an already famous open letter entitled "Thoughts on Music", Steve Jobs shared his vision about music and DRM. “Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats. In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music, which is playable on all players. This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat,” wrote Jobs at the time.
Jobs explained: “DRMs haven’t worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy”. In Jobs’ opinion by requesting that their songs to be sold online only protected with DRMs, the big four music companies, Universal, Sony BMG, Warner and EMI, are making a big mistake.
In the years that passed by since Jobs letter, all the major music labels have started to offer their songs as DRM-free downloads
EMI was the first company to offer its music as DRM free downloads; Universal Music soon joined the move towards DRM-free world, a trend followed by Warner Music Group in December 2007 and in January 2008 by Sony BMG.
Last year, Apple’s iTunes, was rated as the biggest music retailer in United States. Since its official launch, more the 5 billion songs were purchased through iTunes.
