iTunes to sell EMI tracks DRM-free at 256kbps AAC

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very good move

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6516189.stm

99p for 'premium' quality tracks (fair enough imo)
20p to 'upgrade' already-purchased tracks at the current quality (fair enough under the circumstances)

― blueski, Monday, 2 April 2007 13:48 (seventeen years ago) link

This will be ace when everyone else follows suit, but

Lily Allen, Joss Stone, Robbie Williams, Coldplay and Corinne Bailey Rae.

set not the heart aflame

― stet, Monday, 2 April 2007 14:32 (seventeen years ago) link

still with the aac though

― jergïns, Monday, 2 April 2007 14:36 (seventeen years ago) link

What's wrong with AAC? (Except for poor portable player support)

― stet, Monday, 2 April 2007 14:37 (seventeen years ago) link

yeah, mostly that

― jergïns, Monday, 2 April 2007 14:40 (seventeen years ago) link

Specially when we all got all the Lily via viral marketing!

― Mark G, Monday, 2 April 2007 14:43 (seventeen years ago) link

Can most people really tell the difference between 128kbps and 256kbps? I convert everything to 128 so I can cram more songs on my iPod.

― Jazzbo, Monday, 2 April 2007 14:52 (seventeen years ago) link

I can tell the difference between 128 and 160, absolutely. Don't know about much more than that -- I think the difference is there, but my ears are too fucked to spot it these days.

― stet, Monday, 2 April 2007 14:57 (seventeen years ago) link

Can most people really tell the difference between 128kbps and 256kbps? I convert everything to 128 so I can cram more songs on my iPod.

If you're playing them on a loud system you can tell the difference. It gets distorted at lower volumes

― MaGoGo, Monday, 2 April 2007 14:58 (seventeen years ago) link

years back when i first talked to a relative who works as an audio engineer about mp3s and stuff, he was on about compressing mp3s at 256 and i thought that was madness. now i'm more fussy and i don't mind larger files with hard disk size going loopy.

― Alan, Monday, 2 April 2007 14:59 (seventeen years ago) link

i seriously hate 128s, i can soo tell the difference between 128s and 160s which are a little more bearable ..

― mark e, Monday, 2 April 2007 15:02 (seventeen years ago) link

i import everything at 320. i hate hate hate shoddy quality mp3s! they make me think, god, the way we use computers right now is going to seem so archaic and ridiculous, in the future there will be no crap mp3s or stoopid slow connections...

320 is really ideal for anything with sharp beats and important bass...i guess if you're listening to acoustic guitars or something, it wouldn't matter as much.

― lex pretend, Monday, 2 April 2007 15:04 (seventeen years ago) link

256 aac ~= 320 mp3 i think

― s1ocki, Monday, 2 April 2007 15:09 (seventeen years ago) link

Boing Boing points out that this "premium" price will give a competitive advantage to indies who continue to sell for $.99 or less, which is good.

― Neil S, Monday, 2 April 2007 15:12 (seventeen years ago) link

Will other labels be able to do drm free?

― JW, Monday, 2 April 2007 15:17 (seventeen years ago) link

All EMI albums will now be free of DRM and at the higher quality with no increase in price.

Hmm!

― JW, Monday, 2 April 2007 15:18 (seventeen years ago) link

yes. in the full statement Jobs made some prediction about the number of tracks on iTMS that would be available in the premium format which explicitly included persuading other big labels to follow suit.

important step 1 for this is COME UP WITH A NAME. everyone is sticking HD on to things these days, call it the HD iTune. you can have a little HD flag to go along with 'explicit' etc

― Alan, Monday, 2 April 2007 15:19 (seventeen years ago) link

albums in the premium version cost the same as buying all the tracks at low quality = album discount for the first time.

― Alan, Monday, 2 April 2007 15:20 (seventeen years ago) link

What surprises me about this is that EVERYTHING itunes is at 128, isn't it? Regardless of the policy of the label in question, so it seems a bit rich for them to say, oh emi have seen the light. There's loads of stuff they could have been selling at high quality for ages anyway.

Also, I have an ipod anyway, so I don't know, but doesn't the itunes store have its own DRM, so you can only play them on ipods? Or is that not true.

Anyway, this is a positive move.

FWIW, I can hear the difference between 128 and 192 much more than between 192 and a wav/aiff/CD, on headphones or a fairly crappy system.

You can still use the semi-illegal russians anyway, and choose your encryption rate, or download wavs if your hard drive is enormous. Not that you should ; )

― Jamie T Smith, Monday, 2 April 2007 15:29 (seventeen years ago) link

I run a DIY label, and we've been badgering our electronic distributor to (a) get us on emusic (b) get us in on DRM-free iTunes as soon as possible. Will be interesting to see how long it takes Apple to invite us to go DRM-free. Right now, we're on iTunes but we explicitly tell everyone to buy our stuff on Bleep (320k MP3).

Jobs' estimate was for 2.5m of 5m tracks to be DRM-free by the end of 2007. To acheive that he's either expecting to completely convert all the indies, or get one of the majors. My money's on the latter, but not Warner.

(Interestingly, I'm told 256k AAC contains nominally more information than 320k MP3 because of the improved compression algorithm. However, I think both are above a threshold that anyone with a sub-$50k sound system can distinguish.)

Also, I am patting myself on the back right now for buying 20 shares in Apple on Friday.

― caek, Monday, 2 April 2007 15:31 (seventeen years ago) link

What surprises me about this is that EVERYTHING itunes is at 128, isn't it? Regardless of the policy of the label in question, so it seems a bit rich for them to say, oh emi have seen the light. There's loads of stuff they could have been selling at high quality for ages anyway.

The argument goes that having a mixture of qualities would impair the simplicity of the iTunes "experience".

I do hope they label the DRM tracks with something ominous-looking like they do the "CLEAN" and "ADULT" tracks at the moment. Although, if EMI's tests are anything to go by, this won't be necessary. In the conference this morning, the EMI dude described tests they ran earlier this year in which 10 times more people bought the more expensive, higher bitrate DRM-free tracks than the DRMed 128k tracks. Assuming the sample was representative of the music buying public and not just the likes of ilxors, this staggered me.

― caek, Monday, 2 April 2007 15:34 (seventeen years ago) link

There's something about DRM that gets people's goat, even if they have no intention of doing anything with the track other than listening to it on a single PC or burning it once or whatever.

I think people have a hard-enough time feeling that they actually "own" a digital recording anyway, so this intrusion into what they can do with it further dilutes any sense of possession. Since persuading people that they will feel this is key to making digital distribution work, this should really work.

― Jamie T Smith, Monday, 2 April 2007 15:37 (seventeen years ago) link

Aren't AAC, and as said above, ITunes purchases Ipod-specific though? Others need to follow suit or my non-Ipod doesn't benefit. And isn't the Emusic model still the way to go for consumers (although they'll never get any majors on there I'll bet)? caek, I've often wondered if the Emusic model pays as much to the artists since, per track, it is so much cheaper for the consumer. Otherwise, I can't see why artists would use it. Any idea on that? Does Emusic pay as much to the artist/label but run a much leaner business so they can still survive? I often wonder.

― matt2, Monday, 2 April 2007 15:38 (seventeen years ago) link

I keep repeating words like "anyway" and "work". Sorry.

― Jamie T Smith, Monday, 2 April 2007 15:39 (seventeen years ago) link

xpost to Jamie: OTM. I think outside the tech-savvy types who have more sophisticated political difficulties with DRM, the general public finds it unnerving too. They know future-proof when they see it, and DRM isn't.

Also, _all_ EMI videos now DRM-free.

― caek, Monday, 2 April 2007 15:40 (seventeen years ago) link

AAC isn't ipod-only

― s1ocki, Monday, 2 April 2007 15:41 (seventeen years ago) link

matt2: my (limited) understanding is that AAC is just an audio MPEG variant, just like MP3. It's unpatented (unlike MP3) and any device is free to support it. Clearly this announcement gives makers of other devices a very good reason to do so (except Sony, who are idiots about this sort of thing).

― caek, Monday, 2 April 2007 15:42 (seventeen years ago) link

Beatport need to drop their track prices to 99p now.

― blueski, Monday, 2 April 2007 15:43 (seventeen years ago) link

xpost

You can convert AAC into mp3 using itunes, but I don't know if it compresses it again with a further loss of quality, or if it just changes the way it is compressed (I am a technical moron on this). This could be quite significant, actually.

― Jamie T Smith, Monday, 2 April 2007 15:45 (seventeen years ago) link

Until this deal kicks in next month all iTunes store purchases are DRM AAC meaning that they have to be played in iTunes or on an iPod because Apple refuse to license their Fairplay DRM tech.
Once the deal is in effect you will be able to buy music in higher quality non-DRM AAC. Newer and higher spec audio players can play AAC already, which is just a mp3 successor format - and one that doesn't require manufacturers to purchase a license in order to build AAC capable players (unlike mp3 itself). So expect lots of players to start supporting it now.

xpost

― treefell, Monday, 2 April 2007 15:45 (seventeen years ago) link

Variable Bit Rate tracks! Why don't they do this?

― Ben Boyerrr, Monday, 2 April 2007 15:45 (seventeen years ago) link

i don't really like VBR, but it's hard to say why.

― blueski, Monday, 2 April 2007 15:47 (seventeen years ago) link

Slightly off topic, but what they all need to do is make the artwork bigger and better - itunes has done this to an extent, but why no full screen option? And if your music player has a screen, why not an option to have it full screen on that? Again, this would make it feel more like owning a record.

― Jamie T Smith, Monday, 2 April 2007 15:48 (seventeen years ago) link

xpost: I remember buggy players/VBR files conspiring to mis-report track duration, or even truncate tracks when playing, but I get the impression this has kinda been ironed out.

But I guess the thinking is, if you're ripping at 256 AAC or 320 MP3, you already have as much information in the file as you could conceivably need, and VBR just isn't worth the small but non-zero extra effort. Also, I suppose it's harder to explain to the public.

― caek, Monday, 2 April 2007 15:50 (seventeen years ago) link

iTunes has full screen Coverflow, but the embedded artwork is not of high enough resolution to look != shit. This is doubly true on the new Apple TV, which connects to HD TVs. Album covers look like ass on this, by all accounts. I'd like to see better resolution cover artwork included in iTunes purchases.

― caek, Monday, 2 April 2007 15:52 (seventeen years ago) link

i now have different copies of the same mp3 in some cases because one version is louder than another (both from different compilations) or one is higher/lower-pitched than another. gets a bit annoying!

― blueski, Monday, 2 April 2007 15:53 (seventeen years ago) link

minor tech note, you do still need to license the AAC patent for codec purposes.

― Alan, Monday, 2 April 2007 15:54 (seventeen years ago) link

hmm i might have to check this out.

having my record player all repaired and up and running is making it hard for me to tolerate listening to my ipod.

― M@tt He1ges0n, Monday, 2 April 2007 15:54 (seventeen years ago) link

This move is making me want to buy some DRM-free music on iTunes just to make the point. But what? EMI releases on iTunes: OPO.

Rolling Stones - Some Girls?

― caek, Monday, 2 April 2007 15:56 (seventeen years ago) link

"i guess if you're listening to acoustic guitars or something, it wouldn't matter as much."

mmm

― That one guy that quit, Monday, 2 April 2007 16:01 (seventeen years ago) link

http://www.rjamorim.com/test/

― blueski, Monday, 2 April 2007 16:04 (seventeen years ago) link

128 is shitty is all i know.

― That one guy that quit, Monday, 2 April 2007 16:08 (seventeen years ago) link

the subtler the production the less compromised by compression you want it. it's not about what instruments are involved really.

― blueski, Monday, 2 April 2007 16:26 (seventeen years ago) link

How will the pro-DRM majors push back on this, do we think?

― Groke, Monday, 2 April 2007 16:31 (seventeen years ago) link

what about Zune/the Zune shop?

― blueski, Monday, 2 April 2007 16:41 (seventeen years ago) link

xpost

I think they'll give in eventually, but with very tentative releases. There was a story in the New York Times or something last week or so (sorry for the completely inexact information there) about a group called Cherry Hill (or something, sorry again), a female R&B group signed to some major for only two songs (maybe I should just find the article). I think this is gonna be the next movement. Very tentative investment in future acts so that and album's worth of an advance isn't given out and the waters are very tentatively tested with new groups. I'd see majors being much more willing to go DRM free in this sort of environment. But man is that gonna make the industry even more cut-throat I'd think. If somebody's not selling, and they're only signed for two songs anyway, I'd think instant success would be the only way to keep major label support. These are fascinating times in the music industry world.

― matt2, Monday, 2 April 2007 16:44 (seventeen years ago) link

i don't really like VBR, but it's hard to say why.

go on, try!

― toby, Monday, 2 April 2007 16:45 (seventeen years ago) link

ya please

― s1ocki, Monday, 2 April 2007 16:51 (seventeen years ago) link

Okay here's the NYT article.

― matt2, Monday, 2 April 2007 16:53 (seventeen years ago) link

i can't (xpost)

― blueski, Monday, 2 April 2007 17:10 (seventeen years ago) link

Thank Fucking God.

This makes buying music from itunes viable instead of buying cds..

― wesley useche, Monday, 2 April 2007 17:30 (seventeen years ago) link

Zune can play AACs, FWIW.

― caek, Monday, 2 April 2007 17:59 (seventeen years ago) link

my (limited) understanding is that AAC is just an audio MPEG variant, just like MP3. It's unpatented (unlike MP3) and any device is free to support it. Clearly this announcement gives makers of other devices a very good reason to do so (except Sony, who are idiots about this sort of thing).

ok, i have never used AAC format, but this part re Sony aint 100% correct. i have just ripped some files in AAC format using Sonys Sonicstage, which will then transport the files across to the Sony device I use. Of course, in the background it will convert to the ATRAC format, but this is also what happens with mp3s, so i guess Sony do support AACs to some degree.

― mark e, Tuesday, 3 April 2007 07:54 (seventeen years ago) link

AAC is a open source audio codec devised by the MPEG (Motion Picture Experts Group). The MPEG is part of the ISO(Internation Organization for Standardization) which basically comes up with the standards that are to be used in electronics. They created the original MPEG-1 format for early adapters then designed the MPEG-2 codec for DVD's followed recently by MPEG-4 and its variants (h.263, Aiv, etc.) as the standard for future electro-digital video signals (HD-DVD, Blu-Ray, HDTV Terrestial, etc.) As part of these standards for future videos the MPEG also designed a standard compressor for the audio content in those videos. As usually these compressors are also commonly used for actual music. AAC is a completely open source project. Any implementation has to be compatible with the MPEG and ISO Standards. It is a part of the MPEG-4 compressor generation instead of the MP3 generation as noted. Pretty much all AAC files have .mp4 endings.

Finally Sony uses the AAC format as their default for their Blu-Ray technology. Also it is playable on their PSP handheld and the default sound file for the PS3.

― wesley useche, Tuesday, 3 April 2007 08:09 (seventeen years ago) link

> AAC is a completely open source project

There is no "open source" anything in AAC. You are mixing open source and non-proprietary (publically available). There are reference codecs freely available for AAC used in 3GPP, but you pay money for ISO standards and reference code, there are patents involved and thus licensing applies to AAC. See Via Licensing (http://www.vialicensing.com/). You also need extra licensing for HE-AAC (SBR) and HE-AACv2 (PS) from Coding Technologies.

-Pasi

― a1bert, Sunday, 8 April 2007 20:54 (seventeen years ago) link

one month passes...

the new iTunes "non-DRM" tracks encode the buyer's name and personal information into each mp3 before each download. haven't seen this discussed on music boards yet, only tech sites, but it seems important.

anyone who finds or hears word of shareware that batch-strips this information, feel free to let everyone know

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/media/article1871173.ece

The Electronic Freedom Foundation, the online consumer rights group, added that it had identified a large amount of additional unaccounted-for information in iTunes files. It said it was possible that the data could be used to “watermark” tracks so that the original purchaser could be tracked down were a track to appear on a file-sharing network.

Ars Technica, among the first websites to unveil the hidden information, said: “Everyone should be aware that while DRM-free files may lift a lot of restrictions on our personal usage habits, it doesn't mean that we can just start sharing the love, so to speak. Sharer beware.”

― Milton Parker, Monday, 4 June 2007 21:36 (seventeen years ago) link

I hate to say it but from a label standpoint, that sounds pretty good! Like when labels would put little codes on their promos so they'd know who was selling them. But really it's unenforcable. What if somebody stole my computer and put my library on soulseek!

― dan selzer, Monday, 4 June 2007 21:40 (seventeen years ago) link

"Hey, we'll only charge you an extra $.30 if you want your songs to sound good! Also, can we just see the back of your neck for one teeny sec? Thanks, this won't hurt--"

― Jon Lewis, Monday, 4 June 2007 21:42 (seventeen years ago) link

this is some dirty pool bullshit.

― Matos W.K., Monday, 4 June 2007 22:37 (seventeen years ago) link

From what I've read these are just tags added to the file, which could be deleted.

― todd, Tuesday, 5 June 2007 16:07 (seventeen years ago) link

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