Michael J.

DRM May Be Dead, But It's Still Going to Cost You

Not 6 Billion potential songs... 20% - 25% of the library was already DRM-free; EMI's library and indies that chose to do so.

@Jerk: Software companies usually allow you to update their products for free, usually meaning bug fixes. However, you usually have to pay to upgrade to a new version, which is normally a fraction of the original price.

Over my lifetime, I've had to upgrade my music a few times and I was never offered an upgrade path as Apple does. From vinyl to cassette, and then to CD. Thank gawd I was able to rip my CD's and not have to repurchase that music all over again.

Here Apple is giving you the option of upgrading your music, so you can play it on any other device that supports AAC, which is most players today.

Was Amazon Behind iTune's Price Drop?

Amazon was nothing more than a pawn, used buy the music industry to try and hopefully kill iTunes' dominance. It didn't work. Apple never liked DRM, but also didn't want to confuse consumers with "demand" pricing either; the higher the demand, the higher price. Being under pressure from certain foreign governments and their own disliking of DRM, they must've finally decided a tiered pricing scheme may the lesser of two evils.