Unrestricted MP3s on iTunes

Record lable EMI is going to sell unrestricted, DRM-free MP3s via iTunes for $1.29, a $0.30 premium over the usual iTunes track price.  Um, ok.  I appreciate that you’re going to sell DRM-free MP3s at higher sampling rates, but you’re charging too much - by at least a factor of 2.

UPDATE: I was wrong about the format - iTunes is selling the EMI tracks as unprotected AAC files, not unprotected MP3 files.  This has potential for interesting consequences (as discussed at this BusinessWeek article, and it negates a significant amount of my happiness about the unprotected nature of the files.  I assumed that Apple’s proprietary AAC format had DRM built-in, but apparently I was wrong.  If, as the BusinessWeek article suggests, Apple’s AAC format becomes standardized across all players, I’ll be significantly less annoyed over time by this turn of events.  But right now it’s a money grab by Apple instead of the enlightened, Web-reality enabled maneuver I thought it was.

EMI is permitting iTunes to sell it’s catalog of music in an unrestricted, digital right management (DRM)-free MP3 format. iTunes will be charging $1.29 per track instead of the usual $0.99 price, partly because the MP3-formatted tracks are supposedly going to be “enhanced quality,” i.e. recorded at a higher sampling rate than the usual AAC formatted music available on iTunes.

I’m happy that EMI has finally figured out that DRM-free MP3 formatted music is the way of the future.  Steve Jobs of Apple figured it out months ago, and anyone who still pirates music figured it out during the file-swapping reign of the original Napster.  I hope that the rest of the major labels figure it out ASAP too, so we can get rid of DRM forever.  I’d even be willing to pay a little more for a track of music that was higher quality than the usual 128 kbps recorded music we get in standard MP3s and AAC format.  But $1.29?  Give me a friggin break.

I’ve railed on the prices of music tracks online for a long time now (see here and here), and my old arguments haven’t changed.  To summarize, the manufacturing, distribution, and marketing costs of online tracks are nearly zero, so I’ll consider spending serious money for online music when the price hits $0.50 per track or less, not the $0.99 that iTunes charges today, and certainly not the $1.29 for the enhanced quality, DRM-free MP3s that are coming shortly.  $0.55 or $0.60 maybe, but if they seriously want $1.29 of my hard earned cash for a track I can rip at any quality I want off my own CD, they’re smoking something.  (If I knew that more of my money was going to the actual musician, I’d be willing to spend more than even the $0.50 that is my “price of entry” into the MP3-purchasing paradigm, which is why I’m going to be following this bit of news:  MySpace to sell music online.)

You can already buy really cheap and (questionably) legal MP3s from allofMP3.com out of Russia, but I’ve got an even bigger problem buying music from a Russian company (something about my money supporting an autocratic Russian government) than I have spending 2x to 3x what the music should cost.  So I’m keeping myself out of the iTunes revolution for the time being.  I’m sure that the industry will eventually come around to my way of thinking, but it’ll be a while yet, I suspect.

Until then, it’s off to my local music store, Albums on the Hill in Boulder, CO, where I can give fellow music lovers my tastes in music and they’ll recommend CDs I never would have found myself that I’ll come to love.