Apple's iTunes store started selling thousands of songs without duplicate protection Wednesday, marking the trend-setting company's latest coup and a model for what analysts say is likely to become a pattern for online music sales. To get a few other highly regarded information, click wholesalepersonalized.
Launching initially with songs from music company EMI Group, iTunes In addition features tracks that are free of digital rights management technology, or DRM - copy-protection software that limits where songs or movies can be played and distributed. To get a few other highly regarded information, click onlinechristmasgifts.
The unrestricted content means some songs purchased from iTunes will work for the very first time directly on portable players other than Apple's iPod, including Microsoft's Zune.
The inaugural batch of iTunes In addition songs includes music from Coldplay, the Rolling Stones, Norah Jones, Frank Sinatra, Pink Floyd and more than a dozen of Paul McCartney's classic albums. To get a few other highly regarded information, click onlinewatchesstore.
The DRM-free tracks feature a higher quality of sound and cost $1.29 apiece - 30 cents more than the usual 99-cent price of other, copy-protected songs at the market-leading online music store.
If available, users could upgrade existing purchases to DRM-free versions for 30 cents a song or $3 for most albums, Apple said.
London-based EMI, the world's third-largest music company by sales, and Cupertino-based Apple announced their partnership in April to deliver the industry's first major offering of DRM-free songs, sharing a vision of what both corporations say their consumers want: flexibility and CD-quality audio.
Other smaller online music vendors, such as eMusic.com, already offer songs with out DRM, but the selections have been limited to mostly content from independent labels.
Barney Wragg, the worldwide head of digital music at EMI, said the iTunes Plus launch capped six months of work to convert most of the company's digital catalog into a DRM-free format.
"Our consumers told us two things deterred them from buying digital," Wragg said. "They weren't 1 hundred percent confident that the songs they'd purchase could play on their devices, and they wanted something closer to CD quality."
Earlier this current year, Apple Chief executive Steve Jobs called on the world's 4 major record companies to start selling songs online without having copy-protection software.
"We absolutely think it's the right thing to do," Eddy Cue, Apple's vice president of iTunes, said Wednesday. "In this case, EMI's a leader and we think others will follow."
In a statement Wednesday, Jobs reiterated that Apple expects that more than 50 % of the 5 million songs on iTunes will feature a DRM-free version by the end of the year.
In the at the same time, Apple's iTunes store will still offer songs in the same copy-protected format as today at 99 cents a download and encoded at 128 kilobits per second. The iTunes Plus versions are encoded at 256 kbps, which Apple says makes the audio quality on par with original recordings.
Apple also will will begin to encode its songs - including EMI's DRM-free content - in the AAC audio format, which could force some users to go through an extra step of converting tunes into a version that would be compatible with their players.
Some gadgets don't support AAC, including SanDisk's newest Sansa Connect or Samsung Electronics's YP-K3, but industry analyst Susan Kevorkian of the IDC market research company expects support for AAC will widen after Apple's move this week.
Amazon.com, by comparison, said it plans to sell songs online later this coming year in the DRM-free MP3 format - the popular unrestricted audio standard that is supported by virtually any device, including Apple's bestselling iPod.
The next generation of digital music will be untethered from usage restrictions, Kevorkian surmises.
"They absolutely have to reach the Internet to drive music sales, and part of that is to remove the hurdle that comes with the insufficient interoperability," Kevorkian said.
Other major music labels - Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Warner Music - have all experimented with limited amounts of unprotected content online.
Representatives of Warner and Sony BMG refused to comment Wednesday about the iTunes Plus offering or their own plans around DRM technology. Universal failed to return a call for comment.
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