Apple dropping DRM-free tunes to 99 cents

Filed under: Audio, Windows, Macintosh, Apple

Apple dropping DRM-free tunes to 99 cents

by Ted Wallingford Oct 16th 2007

This really can't be a case of "we told you so", but when Amazon is selling music for 89 cents a track and DRM-free tracks seem suddenly to be fashionable as they were before the heady early days of Napster, it only makes sense. Apple is dropping the price of its DRM-free iTunes Plus music downloads to 99 cents apiece. Until now, the Plus tracks cost $1.29.

Ars Technica speculates that this move is driven by cost-competitiveness concerns, but we think the "risky" DRM-free experiment worked. After all, Apple said the Plus tracks were selling well, which proves the point that people don't want third parties to govern their use of information, even if it costs them less to live with such restrictions. Come October 17, restrictions or not, it will just cost them less.

Tags: amazon, apple, itunes, mp3, music

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

John said 10:21AM on 10-16-2007

Nice, but that just means that a 15-track album is still going to cost you $14.85, which is roughly what you'd spend in a retail store, with money that would otherwise pay for the plastic container/disk as well as a ridiculous number of retail intermediaries. Now that the latter are eliminated, how about passing off those savings to us, the consumers? $.50/song (DRM-free) sounds like a step in the right direction, don't you think?!

John
http://www.gigatribe.com

Eleventeen said 1:47PM on 10-16-2007

Blame the studios for the 99 cent charge. Almost 4/5ths of that goes directly to them while most of what Apple gets is eaten up by credit card charges and hosting charges. Apple could not charge less and still make money, which, lets be honest, as a corporation they are obligated to do for their stock holders.

Matthew said 3:46PM on 10-16-2007

I agree they need to be cheaper but like Eleventeen said Apple has to make money as a corporation. I say Apple puts adds in iTunes (like it or not) to help pay for all their hosting costs and what not so they can drop prices on their music and still make money.

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