Apple Ditches Copyright Software… Well, Kinda

Image by Jennifer Daniel

NEAR THE START OF THE NEW YEAR, Apple revealed that it would begin selling all of its music on iTunes without copyright software. The move was welcomed by many as the introduction of a new era. But where does the move actually take music?

By shedding the software, listeners have many more options about what they do with the music they buy. But there are hurdles on this path towards freedom of use, including new privacy issues and inflexibility in upgrading collections previously bought at the iTunes store. Furthermore, new copyright software – often called DRM, which is shorthand for digital rights management – is popping up at Apple and iTunes for other forms of digital culture.

Apple began selling 80 percent of its catalog without the copyright software immediately after its announcement at the Macworld expo on Jan. 6. The rest is expected to become available by the end of March. This means that users can now listen to their songs on a range of devices, and no longer just an iPod. They can also download them to as many computers as they like, whereas they could only do so five times previously. The songs will now also become compatible with many different kinds of software, so listeners could use an editing program, for example, to cut the intro out of a song if they wanted to.

FOR 30 CENTS A SONG, users can upgrade their entire collection to the new format. But this is where the issues begin. One has to upgrade their entire collection, and cannot upgrade song by song.

And the songs are not entirely free of copyright software. The digital music files now include the email address of the purchaser, in order to track where the songs go once purchased. (Click here for a screenshot of how visible your address is on iTunes.) Your email is included on a text file downloaded to your computer along with the iTunes file. It is easily alterable, if you were so inclined to get rid of it. But DailyTech wonders if the email is also included in the file elsewhere.

iTunes is not the only one to do this, however. Dance music digital retailer Juno Download also includes a watermark on songs purchased from them. Amazon MP3 does as well, although it is anonymous and simply tracks where the song was bought, not who purchased it. (Amazon began selling such DRM-free digital music lasy year.)

ALTHOUGH APPLE IS DITCHING DRM for iTunes music, they continue to use it for hardware and other forms of digital entertainment purchased at their store.

Accessory makers must now purchase a license to make their products compatible with the newer iPods. But the authentication chips on the new iPods do not work with older, properly licensed speaker systems, writes Twice.

Furthermore, new Macbooks can only be hooked up to external monitors that conform to copyright protection standards, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The advocacy group also points out that movies, TV shows, and audiobooks purchased at the iTunes store are still DRM-laden.

COPYRIGHT SOFTWARE MADE ITUNES songs compatible only with the wildly popular iPod. Apple argued that this was the only way to make the software effective. But by tying the two together, the move undeniably helped make the iTunes store the largest music retailer in the world, surpassing Walmart as title-holder last year.

But DRM software has proven very ineffective. Even with the prominence of iTunes and the growing popularity of buying digital music, illegal downloading of music is still rampant. Digital music sales grew by a quarter worldwide last year, and accounted for 20 percent of the music market. Illegal downloads, however, still account for 95 percent of all music online, according to a new report by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry.

The music industry seems to be coming to grips with the fact that copyright software doesn’t tamp illegal downloading. It didn’t help record labels or artists. But it did benefit Apple, so good thing for them that the TV and movie industry seem to be making similar mistakes.