iTunes To Drop Most Copy Protection, Vary Prices

The good news: CNET has sources saying the three largest music labels will allow Apple to offer music downloads free of copy-protection. And the bad news might not be that bad. In exchange for the DRM-free tracks, Apple will reportedly allow labels to push three tiers of pricing. Older songs from the archives will likely get cheaper than 99 cents, songs that are newer and “midline” (i.e. not big hits) will inhabit the familiar 99 cent mark, and newer, bigger hits will fetch higher, unnamed dollar amounts.< If announced at the Macworld conference today—which our gadget-obsessed cousins at Gizmodo are, of course, covering live —there could also be over-the-air 3G downloads coming to iPhone owners, and DRM dropped from everything in the iTunes store on launch. As Greg Sandoval at CNET points out, though, that leaves a question mark on tracks already purchased through iTunes. Will variable, DRM-free pricing make you a (new or returning) iTunes customer? Tell us your take in the comments.