Clearly they didn’t if you are switching to Amazon.

Your arguments aren’t coherent.

Let’s say you bought song X at some time in the past with itunes DRM infestation. Assuming you like song X and want to rid it of the DRM infestation, here are your options.

1) There are various hassle-filled ways to rid the song of DRM, most of them reduced quality, none increase it.

2) You could search for the song in Amazon and buy it for $0.79-whatever they are charging.

3) You could click on one button in itunes and pay $0.30.

I know which one I would choose.

I can whine that DRM-free songs weren’t available in itunes in 2006 and I wasted 30 cents not waiting 3 years to buy the song. But that is as immature as whining at Apple that I wasted money on a crappy Motorola phone because Apple didn’t come out with something better till now.

Something for you maybe?

There’s plenty of good new music out there. Stuff like Martin Martini & The Bone Palace Orchestra, Gotye or Cloud Cult are fantastic :)

I do think you’ve often got to look a bit past the proliferation of indie-by-numbers or bland pop music to find what’s really worth while, but there’s some brilliant work out there whatever your tastes.

Myself, i’ve purchased a few tracks from itunes, that weren’t available DRM free. But I found doubletwist to do a nice job of removing the DRM. I still like to buy CD’s where I can though.

Doubletwist is also ridiculously easy to use, a good way to synchronise media across a number of devices/platforms and it’s free!

DRM for me has never been an issue, even with iTunes purchases. But I think anybody who kicks out $200+ to Apple to “use freely” what they ALREADY PURCHASED is, no offense, donating to the wrong charity.

Oh, and James, I’ve got about the same number of songs burned on a DVD+RW that I play in the car and keep adding more music all the time with an SD card. I also keep the same copy on my pocket PC, all DRM free using WMA.

With a little knowledge, anyone can un-DRM an iTunes purchase. Invest in a little time and learning, and save yourself throwing out hundreds to Apple.

Call it 60 CDRs worth of music – $50 for someone to burn them, the same for someone else to rip them back, that’s two people’s financial worries eased (albeit temporarily), you’re $100 in pocket and the RIAA haven’t benefited by an extra penny.

Believe me, I’ve got no love for record labels or DRM. I just take issue with the idea that Apple is a poor oppressed victim of the recording industry. They’ve said “screw you” to their customers time and again, and people still keep coming back for more.

I actually hit Amazon’s MP3 store daily. It’s one of my first stops because they feature a different DRM-free MP3 album for cheap. Usually anywhere from $0.99 to $3.99. No matter what the genre, I preview the entire album. Sometimes I buy, sometimes I don’t. I find that this gives me a good way to sample music outside my “comfort zone” and often provides an inexpensive way to add to my DRM-free collection.

If I had to bet, I’d say the upgrade fee is a requirement of the labels based on past behavior. Apple offered higher-priced DRM-less files to the labels who wanted variable-priced tracks, and only EMI was willing. Instead, the others (and eventually EMI as well) went off and used this issue to create a competitor to iTunes, by offering a DRM-free track to a competitor at the same price it was offering the same track, but DRMed, to iTunes. I’m only surprised that Apple didn’t find the will (or grounds) to sue.

I haven’t bought a single DRM’ed song. Anywhere. I have way too many CDs that I don’t listen often enough to anyway, so my ripped collection is plenty. Are there even any good songs getting released these days? ;)