DVDneXtCOPY iTurns Removes iTunes DRM with Virtual CD Burner

[Leo Mauler]

--- On Thu, 10/30/08, Jon Pruente <jdpruente at gmail.com> wrote:

> The DRM free music is a higher bitrate than AAC 
> protected music, so your claim of a loss of 
> quality is ignorant at best, and deliberately 
> ignoring the facts at the worst.

Hey Jon?  Remember that E-mail where you discovered that I "hadn't read" the passage about the DRM metadata?  Here's a quote from *that E-mail*, where I quoted the link supporting my comment about the "no difference in quality" between iTunes and iTunes Plus:

"According to MaximumPC, which listen-tested iTunes DRM 128K AAC files against iTunes Plus DRM-Free 256K AAC files when iTunes Plus first came out, there's not a noticable difference between the two types of music files."

http://www.tuaw.com/2007/06/04/itunes-vs-itunes-plus-an-audible-difference/

Apparently you, Jon Pruente, choose to just rant not to actually read.

> I never said Apple wasn't to blame, but they 
> are not as much to blame as you seem to like.

Apple benefits hugely from DRM.  Wal-Mart (another DRM music retailer) is its only serious competitor.  Apple's "FairPlay" DRM system gives it a lock-in on the best selling music player, the iPod (kinda like Palladium would have done for Microsoft and the PC).  Apple would never have reached where it is today in the online music business without DRM, and it doesn't retain market lock-in on the most popular music player without its DRM.

The irony about claiming that "the labels are to blame for DRM on iTunes" is that Amazon was permitted to sell DRM-free MP3s by *the same labels* which only sell DRM music to Apple.

http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/06/amazon-launches.html

The reason?  Apple refused to budge on its "99 cents a track" pricing, so the labels allow Amazon to sell DRM-free to try and make Apple change its "99 cents a track" price to variable pricing.  All Steve Jobs has to do is allow variable pricing per track, and he can have *his entire six million track catalog* (as opposed to his limited 2-3 million track iTunes Plus catalog) FREE OF DRM.  It's not even a "small price to pay", more like a "small increase in his profits" to gain what he has said, NUMEROUS times, he wants more than anything.  Steve Jobs would even rather deny *all access* to iTunes Plus DRM-free music rather than change his "99 cents per track" rate, hardly the statement of a committed DRM opponent.

http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/10/thursdays-copyr.html

Well, Steve Jobs is an anti-*music* DRM guy anyway: Steve Jobs is *fine* with video DRM: 

http://tinyurl.com/stevejobs-drm-double-standard, and 

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20071204/140443.shtml.

And the fact is that Apple clearly doesn't have a problem with variable pricing, as it started off "iTunes Plus" at 30 cents a track more than iTunes, and currently allows HBO shows to be sold through iTunes with variable pricing.

http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/05/hbo-comes-to-it.html

So lets get this straight: if Apple was really anti-DRM, all they would have to do is allow variable pricing on their music.  They don't.  Clearly they benefit more from music DRM, which makes them part of the problem.  The labels will give Apple DRM-free music if Apple changes the "99 cents per-track" rate on iTunes to variable pricing.  The labels apparently *aren't* a part of the problem, because Apple knows all it has to do to get completely DRM-free music is do what Amazon did...and they don't do what Amazon did.

The labels want Apple to have DRM-free music, and Apple is refusing to allow the labels to give Apple DRM-free music.  Exactly how is Apple's refusal to allow all DRM-free music the fault of anyone other than Apple?  And since the labels are allowing DRM-free music, how are they a part of the DRM problem when they are willing to drop DRM, but Apple is not a part of the DRM problem despite refusing to drop DRM themselves?