Always a catch, but Apple's in business to help Apple first, you & me second. Even so, ditching DRM is a smart move that will attract new customers before the online music market gets overly saturated.

Haaaaaaaahahahahahahahahaha

Hahahahahaha Haaaaaahahahaah LOL LMAO hahahaahaha ROTFL

*gasps for air*

Haaaaaaaaaahahahahahahaah haha hah
hah

Sorry. You didn't see this coming the moment you bought something that had the apple label on it? that only supported their own proprietary DRM format? Haaahahahahaha.

I hope many of you will be loyal apple customers for decades to come.

$119.65 for 476 Total Songs. Can't you just burn them to CD and rip them?

@UNCOOLJOHN: Ofcourse you could, but that would not be the same as having your e-mail address automatically embedded in every song you 'own' would it?

@UNCOOLJOHN

bwahahahahahhahah $120, to REPURCHASE songs you have already bought lol.

OMG, you gotta LOVE Apple.

The funny thing is, your total might be less than a lot of other appleheads out there.

Could be worse - they did not have to give you the option at all. Blame the record companies - not Apple. Better than Play4Sure!

@ DUCKIE, what does buying something from Apple have to do with it? DRM was required by the music labels. Without it they never would have let anyone sell music online. At the time the iTunes store was launched, Apple had to twist some music industry arms to allow their customers to burn unlimited discs, play music on an unlimited number of iPods, and play music on up to 5 different computers.

They fact that Apple was able to convince the industry to get rid of the DRM requirement is fantastic. The fact that the music industry gave everyone but Apple a head-start on removing DRM from their stores is almost criminal.

OMG. That's ridiculous. It would end up costing $170.84 to do the songs on my laptop only....My PC has about....4 times the amount of songs purchased from iTunes...So I'm a little scared to see what that total is.

i don't use itunes (since im very anti apple) but isn't there some kind of software out there that breaks drm encyrptions. here i find an article that shows how (it's kind of only so i don't know if it still works) hope it saves you'll some $$$ :).

http://mostlysavingmoney.com/how-to-break-itunes-drm/

Yep, USD 158.02 - that is a lot of money for songs I have already paid for once.

726 songs so far. $194.63.

121 songs at NZD$35

$99.30 for 321 songs and 5 music videos. I know there is a difference in price between the regular and drm free, but it's just not fair.

Absolutely ridiculous. 696 total songs, $173.34. Complete rip-off.

oh Dear I sense one too many PC addicts wanting to do some Apple bashing and not reading things correctly. The upgrade can be done song by song at I think it was 40p per track if you are in the UK or as an all in one at 20p per track. Yes you will have to do the download all at one go if you want the 20p option but that is your choice. while we are at it just remember that the tracks are higher quality and DRM free and from what I heard of the Amazon offering on their preview far superior than Amazon are offering!

GET REAL YOU DONT GET ANYTHING FOR NOTHING IN THIS WORLD especially when someone has had to recode an entire back catalogue of songs to improve the quality

Oh boy this buy it on the cheap culture has to stop. I have eventually managed to get through to my dad on this you get what you pay for! If you want a poorer sound quality or something illegal then go for the cheaper options if not then you have to pay the price. I made my choice and it is a big fat fruit with a bit taken out of it! ;)

Spence

I just did the upgrade for 112 tracks at the cost of $16.80. I had already burned CD's and ripped them to remove the Apple DRM. In this case I did it to support the whole concept of DRM free music. Of course this is a small charge.

I'm hopping that at some point Apple and the music labels see that this is a ridiculous idea and give me credit to buy more music but we will see.

Spanading----you have THAT right---even though these M$ monkeys are bashing Apple over the DRM issue (which wasn't something Apple had to do with in the FIRST place), I find them NOT mentioning the fact that their "player", Micro$not's ZUNE, will not only have you playing your song on their player, but if you try to "share" it with others, or try to put it on more than one computer, it only plays for 3 times before you pay more.....but of course, these flying monkeys don't want to mention THAT little tidbit......Oh, well. I guess even on Sci Fi's blogs, there be TROLLS.....

Thank you for injecting some common sense, Spanading. Somebody's gotta recode all that crap. If you didn't like the DRM crap and aren't smart enough to figure a workaround, maybe you should have stopped using iTunes about, oh, 726 songs ago!

People seem to miss the part where Steve Jobs went to the music industry, said DRM is pointless and convinced THEM to drop it. You know, the same music industry that's been suing 12 year olds for the past eight years? That's some pull, my friends.

Hell yes, I'm an Apple fanboy, and that's because I know how to take my PC apart a million and one ways and actually KNOW what makes Apple better.

what is a drm? what does it do to have drm free music? explain it to me like i am an idiot. do you have to do it and is it really that much better? if i ripp my cds into itunes isnt that already good quality? if any one can explain it simply, but nicely to me i would appreciate it.
thx

If you want to only upgrade only certain songs you could try the following:
Put all the song you do NOT want to upgrade into a playlist
Back up that playlist to CD or DVD
Delete those songs from your library (having them in a playlist should make this easier)
Then ask apple for the bottom line to upgrade
Upgrade if you think it is worth the higher encoding rate and no DRM
restore all the songs from your backup
NOTE: I have not tried this my self... Yet

By justme at 11:07 PM ON 01/18/09

If you want to only upgrade only certain songs you could try the following:
Put all the song you do NOT want to upgrade into a playlist
Back up that playlist to CD or DVD
Delete those songs from your library (having them in a playlist should make this easier)
Then ask apple for the bottom line to upgrade
Upgrade if you think it is worth the higher encoding rate and no DRM
restore all the songs from your backup
NOTE: I have not tried this my self... Yet
Unfortunately that does not work, it goes by your purchase history on the itunes server.

Personally, I'm happy I can get rid of the DRM in my music. I don't think anyone can complain that it's not free b/c (besides bandwith not being free): 1)we all knew we were buying DRM protected music. 2)we're all getting higher quality songs. 3)the ability to rip/share on other ipods/pcs. Beside, you can backup your DRM songs to CD/DVD. The only real reason to upgrade is so you don't lose your right to your songs by reaching a copy limit.

Yes, DRM is very bothering when you want put the music to other player.So I have searched many way via some article, and found that :to remove DRM, there are many methods, such as CD burning and ripping and so on. and there are many tool,such as there is article presents you a easy way, such as Wondershare Media Converter to convert your protected files to DRM-free ones.

here is its info:
http://www.removing-drm.com/drm-tips/remove-drm-protection.html#146

When I open this upgrade, I dont even have all of these songs on my computer any longer since I just got a new computer & my old computer crashed before I could get all of my music onto my ipod. So, does anyone know if I go ahead and buy the upgrade will it put all of this music back onto my music library in my intunes that I am missing! Thanks to any one who can help me out!

Enough is enough! Apple iTunes and the record companies are punishing their customers for being loyal and honest. I find it really hard to swallow a $176 bill to free myself from the shackles that iTunes locked me into in the first place. Call me naive, but I believe a better solution would have been for iTunes to reward its loyal customers with free upgrades or even a 5-cent rebate to upgrade each song. They could call it the “I wish I had a nickel for every song I could’ve stolen” iTunes customer loyalty campaign.

Yes, DRM is very bothering when you want put the music to other player.So I have searched many way via some article, and found that :to remove DRM, there are many methods, such as CD burning and ripping and so on. and there are many tool,such as there is article presents you a easy way, such as Aimersoft Media Converter to convert your protected files to DRM-free ones.

http://www.youtubetoipod.biz/drm-remover.html