You'll be hearing the new phrase "iTunes Plus" all over the place now, and it refers to music that will be the DRM-free EMI catalog as previously announced. You'll have to have iTunes 7.2 installed to get these new tracks which can be used in anyway you see fit. With no usage restrictions, will we actually be able to "link to songs" from our blog posts? Make mix burns for friends without that guilty pang and harsh memories of those "Don't Steal Music" trailers on DVD rentals? Actually listen to music we've purchased anywhere any time we want? It's about time!
Apple released iTunes 7.2 today for Mac and Windows, and it's available for download, or you can get it by going to software update from your system preferences pane in Mac OS X.
At $1.29, and "high quality 256 kbps AAC encoding for audio quality virtually indistinguishable from the original recordings" we will be paying a little more dough to be able to do what we want with these audio files. Sounds like a good deal to me. I always thought $.99 for a song was pretty cheap anyway. You'll be able to set iTunes to always buy iTunes Plus versions of music when available, when you buy your first one, or you can choose which type of file to purchase and download each time you go to the iTunes Store. You can change this setting by accessing your account information on the iTunes Store.
"iTunes will continue to offer its entire catalog, currently over five million songs, in the same versions as today--128 kbps AAC encoding with DRM--at the same price of 99 cents per song, alongside the higher quality iTunes Plus versions when available. In addition, iTunes customers can now easily upgrade their library of previously purchased EMI content to iTunes Plus tracks for just 30 cents a song and $3.00 for most albums."
