End of the Road for DRM

As of today, audio DRM-restriction practice in digital music industry becomes more and more outdated. The last of the big four major labels, Sony BMG, has finally abandoned DRM in 2008 following Warner Music Group, EMI and Universal Music Group. This step has been worked out in advance. Sony started distributing DRM-free promotional downloads for recording artists that sell less than 100,000 units. And this experiment has gained the breakthrough for a good few of them.

The launching of Amazon DRM-free music store was certainly a starting point for the leading digital music stores to give away employing DRM. "Amazon MP3" digital music store turned online in 2007 after Warner Music Group label decided to sell their recordings in unprotected format. After that, since 2008 Napster started selling music as MP3's either. They are offering MP3's for $0.99 each and $9.95 for the entire album. However, using the monthly subscription the customer can still download and listen to any of 6 million songs in WMA format. These downloads come in DRM-protected format and will remain playable until the end of your subscription.

At the 2009 Macworld Conference & Expo, it was openly announced that Apple iTunes Music Store would become DRM-free with conversion complete by April 2009. Finally, Apple decided not to convert the music to commonly used MP3's. Audio downloads are sold now in iPod M4A unprotected format at different prices of $0.69, $0.99, and $1.29 per one track. New releases will cost more and the difference in price will also depend on the artist popularity. As of now, the old iTunes customers can upgrade their existing DRM-protected downloads for only $0.30 per file. Sure, for huge music library owners this kind of upgrade will certainly cost an appreciable sum of money. On the other hand, any video and audio book downloads will remain in protected format.

There are some effective ways to bypass DRM protection. The first and most obvious is to burn music files to CD in audio format and then re-rip as non-DRM files. It can be helpful in case you have burning rights and plenty of time. And unfortunately this is for audio only. Another way is to use Apple AV Connection Kit. You can connect iPod to the visual device such as hi-fi or TV and then re-record your music or video using any compatible recording device. One more inconvenience here is Apple AV Connection Kit price of $100. The third and most proved way is to use the software application for conversion. The market leaders here are SoundTaxi, Tunebite and MuvAudio. Using Virtual Soundcard conversion technology makes them absolutely legal. Of course they will work only with valid subscription to the digital media service. The working DRM converter will cost you from $20 to $50.

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