Free iPhone

Apple has announced an agreement with four major music labels – Universal, Sony BMG, Warner and EMI – that will finally see digital rights management (DRM) be phased out of the iTunes music store.

iTunes, the single largest music retailer in the US, is one of the last-remaining big-name adopters of DRM – a system designed to prevent customers from sharing purchased music with others. By alleviating such restrictions, music purchased from Apple’s iTunes is now available for use on any device and not just iPods and iPhones.

However, in a possible attempt to convince record labels that DRM-free is the way forward, Apple has for the first time introduced a tiered pricing structure. In the past, each iTunes song was sold at a cost of 79p. As of today, tracks will be available at a cost of 59p, 79p, or 99p – a three-tier structure allowing record labels to presumably charge a premium for new releases. Full albums, however, will remain priced at £7.99.

Despite the promising widespread adoption of DRM-free music from the likes of Amazon MP3 and Play.com, Apple’s transition isn’t without faults. Users with existing DRM-protected music will be charged 20p per track to remove any existing restrictions. Furthermore, iTunes’ music will continue to be offered in 256kbps AAC – a format that isn’t as widely compatible as the common MP3.

Apple states that its iTunes Store will begin offering eight million of its 10 million songs in a DRM-free format as of today, and the remaining two million songs will be DRM-free by the end of March.