Digital music has entered the next phase of its young life. Earlier this month, Apple Corp. announced changes to its online digital music store, iTunes, that will change the pricing scheme as well as remove copying restrictions.
The innovative tech leader announced at its annual Macworld conference in San Francisco that three of the four major music labels – Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music Group will be able to sell music through iTunes without Digital Rights Management software or DRM.
The removal of DRM software will allow iTunes users to freely move all purchased songs from the online store between computers and other MP3 devices.
In return for the removal of the software by music labels, Apple agreed to augment its pricing model for the songs in the iTunes store for a more efficient model. Apple resisted the long-standing demands of music labels to change the pricing of all songs at 99 cents. Now you will find that music labels selling music through iTunes will be pricing the most popular songs at $1.29, moderately popular songs at 99 cents and the majority of the iTunes library will go for 69 cents.
The move will potentially bring in more revenue for the music labels by making more revenue on their most popular songs and increasing the appeal of older and less popular songs by making them cheaper.
Wall Street music analysts applauded the move, saying this will help digital music sales, which have shown signs of declining after the first five years of the existence of the iTunes music store.
Macworld keynote speaker and Apple Senior Vice President Phillip Schiller said the move would allow consumers to more efficiently fill their digital music playlists and dig deeper into the iTunes catalog.
Apple also announced consumers will be able to pay a one-time fee to strip the DRM restrictions on previously purchased songs. The fee is projected to be 30 cents per song.
iPhone users also received good news from the conference. It was announced that the popular smart phone will be able to download songs from iTunes through data networks like AT&T’s 3G network. Previously, phone users would have to connect to a computer or Wi-Fi network.
Jobs’ health a major concern
Apple’s chief Steve Jobs announced Wednesday that he is taking medical leave until June. In a letter to all Apple employees, Jobs, 53, said lingering health issues “continue to be a distraction not only for me and my family, but everyone at Apple as well.”
The announcement comes only nine days after Jobs stated that his recent weight loss is due to a hormone imbalance and his health was not an issue moving forward. Jobs is a pancreatic cancer survivor.
This is an issue for Apple and those who love Apple products because it is widely known that Jobs played a major role in the creation of the most popular Apple products: the iPod, iPhone, and consumer friendly Macintosh computers.
Some analysts fear that without Jobs, Apple could be left without a major product launch for 2009.
