November 15, 200718 yr And from the last source you'd expect:[hide]MicroSoft![/hide] Seriously, this a breakthrough. iTunes has DRM free music for 99 cents, (AND it's not MP3) they just lowered it a bit ago. http://www.zune.net , somewhere there. Okay, at first I read it as 79 cents, which got me really excited. But I found out that that sign that looks like a cent sign is really a MS points. 100 MS points go for 1.25 USD, or 1.20 EUR. I'll leave out the math, but that brings a 79-point song to .9848 or something EUR, roughly the same in Dollars. More on MS points: http://www.answers.com/topic/microsoft-points
November 16, 200718 yr I don't think pirates care about the reduce in prices on music. True, but it's a positive advance for those who download music legally (and their ranks are vast... Last I checked most people downloaded it through legal channels) DRM protection is a joke anyways. I only remember ever having 1 product with it, think it was a movie. It was in a weird format, I was unable to burn it, unable to convert it, etc... If I buy a MP3, I expect to use it on any mp3 player, computer, dvd player, etc... Same with a movie. Sure, probably everyone has downloaded MP3's 'off the record'. School teachers. Lawyers. RIAA themselves. Even politicians and ministers. But a lot of people that do that, like the artist so much they'll buy the legal, physical copy.
November 16, 200718 yr Prices on online downloads don't mean a thing when the formats offered aren't compatible with what people actually want to use them with, are only a fraction of the quality of the pirated version, and still contain DRM that limits what you can do with what you payed for. Pricing downloads to match that of a physical cd is an additional ripoff because you don't have any physical media, extras or cover art. Yeah, it's a step, but how long did it take for them to finally take that step? Years now? All the while, they're still trying to play wack-a-mole with the BT trackers (and failing miserably) instead of just offering DRM free copies at the quality users want. It will take a massive shift in how the industry works to get rid of piracy, simply because the pirated copy is better than what the labels offer in every way.
November 16, 200718 yr Author I don't like piracy, and I don't like iTunes (other than podcasts) so this is just perfect for me. It didn't change all my music into some wierd format like iTunes does either.
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