Apple's New Music Store

[llbbl]

http://www.apple.com/music/

iTunes Music Store

An online music store that lets customers quickly find, purchase and download over 200,000 songs from music companies including BMG, EMI, Sony Music, Universal and Warner Bros. for just 99 cents per song, without subscription fees, the iTunes Music Store allows burning songs onto an unlimited number of CDs for personal use, listening to songs on an unlimited number of iPods, playing songs on up to three Macintosh computers, and using songs in any application on the Mac, including iPhoto, iMovie and iDVD. [Apr 28]

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What do you guys think of this? Pretty sweet eh! I am liking Mac more and more everyday. Would be nice to have as a 3rd or 4th machine. The only catch to this service is you have to have a New Mac.

"The iTunes Music Store is only available in the U.S. To get running all you need is a Mac with Mac OS X (version 10.2.5 or later recommended), and an Internet connection (DSL, Cable or a LAN-based connection recommended for streaming and downloading music). Just download iTunes 4, click the Music Store icon, and you’ve got the world’s most accessible music store, right on your screen. Feel free to browse for as long as you want. There’s no pressure to buy, no annoying pop-up ads, and no confusion about what’s offered."

Read more about this service that we have ALL been waiting for over at Cnet.

http://news.com.com/2100-1027-998590.html

[dang]

I think its awesome. I do wonder what DRM technology they are using.

I would love to have a mac, I just can't afford one.

[llbbl]

Originally posted by dang
I think its awesome. I do wonder what DRM technology they are using.

I would love to have a mac, I just can't afford one.

Here is a guy's person expirence with the problem of sharing AAC files.

http://use.perl.org/~pudge/journal/11922



General information
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Here's the restrictions: when downloading a song (for 99 US cents) you can transfer it to an unlimited number of iPods, burn it onto an unlimited amount of Audio CDs, play it on three different (Macintosh) Computers (via streaming). When burning, the system enforces a change of the playlist every ten burns. The licence for the song is tied to the computer from which it's been downloaded but can be transferred to other machines.

http://tomster.org/


More Detailed Information
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iTunes Music Store Digital Rights Summary

Apple introduced their new iTunes Music Store which features AAC formated files available for download. The new files feature a form of "Digital Rights Management"... aka Copy Protection. First word of Apple's work on this technology with respect to MPEG4 (AAC) was in a PCPro.co.uk article in February of this year. At that time, DRM incorporation into the MPEG4 standard was set to be accomplished by June of this year.

http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2003/04/20030429195456.shtml


The register article on it
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More importantly, the software also needs to tie into QuickTime to allow the playback off protected AAC files of the kind used by the Music Store (see Steve Jobs blesses DRM, and nothing happens. Music Store downloads use MPEG-4's DRM system - AAC is part of MPEG-4, which is why you need QuickTime for now - and save files with the .M4P suffix, according to MacRumors.com. User-encoded AAC files are suffixed .M4A. iTunes prevents users from converting an M4P file into any other format, though there's nothing to stop anyone burning M4Ps to audio CD and ripping back beyond a potential loss of audio quality.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/39/30466.html