Last week’s announcement—that Apple would offer DRM-free music from EMI—jump-started my motivation to dump DRM. Last autumn, I expressed concern about my growing library of copy-protected content, particularly music. The iTunes music store had always been a compromise of convenience, because of the DRM and 128kbps encoding. When available, I will convert my catalog of EMI content to DRM-free, which includes 256kbps encoding.
In the meantime, I am re-ripping all my CDs as 256kbps AAC files and stopped purchasing from iTunes Music Store—except DRM-free music, when available. Yesterday, I signed up for an Audio Lunchbox account, which offers indie-label DRM-free MP3s, recorded at 192kbps variable-bit rate. I discovered the music store more than two years ago. My first download—more as a symbolic effort—was The Sounds’ “Living in America”.
My goal is to convert my entire music library to DRM-free by the end of the year.
Photo Credit: Oliver McCloud