Recently Apple announced it has finally struck deals with all the major music labels, making songs sold via the iTunes Store free of digital rights management.
As of right now 8 million of the iTunes Store’s 10 million songs are offered without DRM; the entire catalog is expected to go DRM-free by the end of the first calendar quarter of 2009.
Users who have already purchased music from the iTunes Store protected with Apple’s FairPlay DRM will be able to upgrade their entire library of previously-purchased songs, though an additional fee is required—30 cents per song.
Since going online, the iTunes Store has retained one pricing model — 99 cents per track, with many albums priced at $9.99. That’s changing in April, said Schiller — there will then be three pricing tiers: 99 cents, 69 cents, and $1.29