ITunes – DRM Free Now and Then

I have used iTunes and the iTunes store since the beginning and have a substantial investment in music. I like the proposed change in the price structure – I buy mostly “older” music (blues, jazz, classic rock) so the lower price for this music is a good deal for me. The DRM free change is more difficult to evaluate. I do find it annoying to have music split between my office and home machines and no legal way to play one collection on the other machine. It seems to me new DRM-free music I download could be “duplicated” across my two machines. I assume this would be legal.

Unless I am missing something, the offer to remove DRM from existing music does not make sense. It seems likely a penalty for my existing purchases (cost to “upgrade” vs. cost to purchase now).

itunesupgrade

The cost to do this across two machines (the cost for my home machine which has the smaller collection is shown here) is more than I am willing to commit.

I also wonder about the interest in the higher end charge for new releases. I know I can download DRM free songs from LaLa for .89 today – why would I pay more than this from Apple?

So – I like the move to DRM-free, but I don’t understand the policy regarding my existing collection.

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