Music

Earlier today Apple announced that they’re removing Digital Rights Management (DRM) from music bought through the iTunes music store. They also announced that you could upgrade your previously purchased music from the old standard (128 kbps protected file) to the new format (256 kbps DRM Free) for $0.30 per song on individual tracks or 30% of the current album price on full albums, but it’s not immediately apparent on how you go about doing that.

It’s actually very easy… simply open iTunes and select the iTunes Store in the sidebar (on the left). On the store home page, look in the upper right, under QUICK LINKS, for “Upgrade my Library”. Clicking that will take you to a summary page of what it would cost to upgrade everything you’ve bought. Don’t worry, you won’t be charged unless you click the “Buy” button on that summery screen.

Unfortunately, there doesn’t appear to be any way of upgrading individual tracks or albums… it’s either everything you’ve bought, or nothing. Also, since the entire catalogue offered through iTunes hasn’t been upgraded to the new format yet, not everything will be available. In my own tests, only about half of what I’ve bought is available for upgrade. Apple should have everything updated by the end of March, 2009.

Personally, I’m bummed about the all or nothing approach Apple has taken. I really don’t want to upgrade everything I’ve bought.

UPDATE (1/07/2009): Macworld has posted much more information about this.