Apple and EMI announced DRM-free music options and there was much rejoicing! As we said earlier today, the DRM-free tracks are 30% more, i.e.: $1.29 a track. I’ve been wondering where that markup came from and found something coincidental thanks to some comments on our original post this morning. I was validating to Mike and John that if you owned a Beatles CD, for example, you could just rip the CD, move the files around and play ‘em on portable devices.
I just added the Beatles first album to my Zune player at 192 kbps WMA format and I’m rockin’ out as I write this post. I then wondered what the cost of a standard Beatles CD is on Amazon: turns out most of them are $12.97 or pretty darn close to 30% more than a digital album would cost from iTunes. Coincidence or not? Granted, the 30% non-DRM-tax only applies to individual tracks, not full albums, but the price difference and 30% markup are interestingly close, no? Many new albums on Amazon are priced at $9.99, so I’m thinking this explains why the 30% markup isn’t on iTunes album purchases as well.
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