Like most nerds today I was getting very little work done this morning while at my office due to the MacWorld Expo and Apple’s keynote. Like thousands of other gadget junkies I was waiting for the next big announcement from the golden child of Cupertino so I was glued to live coverage from Ryan Block’s GDGT blog, Engadget and Gizmodo. When all was said and done I was rather underwhelmed by what Apple announced today. In the last two years Apple had announced such cool gadgets as the iPhone and MacBook Air so sorry I didn’t flip out over a new version of iLife and a redesigned MacBook Pro. There were other semi-cool announcements during the keynote but the one that caught my eye was “iTunes Plus.”
Awesome, Apple has FINALLY announce DRM free music. But don’t get too excited make sure you read the fine print. Apple will be charging $1.29 for 256kbps AAC DRM free “iTunes Plus” files. Wow we should be so lucky… everyone loves paying a premium on something that should be included in the original price. Thanks for being so generous Apple! For DRM free tracks that we already own you are also going to charge an additional 30 cents to “upgrade” them to “iTunes Plus?” Oh cool, you also make it easy for us to upgrade our existing tracks in bulk! Savages.
All sarcasm aside I just can’t fathom what Apple and the record labels were thinking. You can get all of your music DRM free from Amazon and save yourself the hassle of “upgrading” or paying a premium and supporting the greedy bastards at Apple and EMI. About nine months ago I wrote a scathing blog post about Amazon MP3 catching up to iTunes while offering a superior product and this news just again proves my point. Sadly I am sure there are tons of fan-boys and girls out there that are more than willing to shell over 30 cents a song to support iTunes and their now “DRM free” files… sheep I tell you.
This move is all about money. There will be 8 million “DRM free” songs on iTunes when all is said and done, at a mark up of 30 cents each. If everyone who purchased one of the over six billion songs that have been sold on iTunes upgrade those tracks to “iTunes Plus” that would net Apple a cool 1.8 BILLION DOLLARS! Sure that many tracks aren’t going to be upgraded overnight but you see the kinds of numbers that can quickly add up thanks to their “convenient” bulk upgrade option. Shame on you Apple and shame on the record labels (who’s sales were up in 2008) for trying to cash in on something that should be free… but most of all shame on the consumers who will pay the premium and line Apple’s pockets even more.
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