bye bye DRM

Wow! It's about time - PaidContent reports that Apple is dropping DRM across the board on itunes. From the report, Apple will:
drop DRM copy protection across 10 million iTunes Store songs from all majors, as per CNET’s earlier report. The move will apply to eight million tracks as of today and will extend to a further two million by the end of the quarter. Bringing to a close what have sometimes been fractious label negotiations, Apple is also introducing three new pricing tiers for iTunes tracks—$0.69 for older tracks, $0.99 for recent tracks and $1.29 for new hits. Marketing VP Phil Schiller, taking Steve Jobs’ traditional keynote spot, also said Apple is extending the ability to buy iTunes songs wirelessly via iPhone from merely WiFi to 3G mobile networks; also from today, tracks will be priced the same and have the same bitrate as desktop iTunes downloads.

This is huge. Not just for music fans, but for us indie filmmaker folks as well. It will take awhile for many filmmakers and distributors to accept it, but DRM is dead for film as well.We're still offering it at Reframe, because that's what distributors and filmmakers still ask us for, but we keep telling everyone - worry about obscurity, not piracy!