Now, if you have been following my posts on the iTunes Freebies of the Week downloads, you’ll probably realise that this week’s downloads points directly to the albums themselves instead of their dedicated Singles of the Week or Discovery Download pages.
I experienced problems when I checked the old links I posted, and was greeted by the iTunes Store stating that a certain download is not available in the US Store. The thing is, when I first posted those links and checked them, they were there! I came to realise later that I might have probably pasted the wrong URL (misplaced one or two characters, sorry) or that the free downloads themselves have expired. Linking to the full albums is a wiser choice and ensures that the links does not expire. I’ll duly punish myself in the future should I paste the wrong URLs again.
But the error messages are still a bit wrong.
Anyway, there is another reason why I link to the album page instead of the freebies one: iTunes Plus. Yes, the free-from-the-evil-that-is DRM version of the songs.
Take a look at the following top screenshot for this week’s Single of the Week download. Click on it for a larger version.
Next, take a look at the screenshot at the bottom. Notice that the highlight says Free for the left one, but there’s a + (plus) sign on the one at the right? The one on the left is being offered with its DRM-shackles intact, while the one on the right is the iTunes Plus version. Purchase each of them separately to see the difference.
I actually caught this last week, but wasn’t quite sure about it as I have already download both songs that were offered for free and redownloading doesn’t give me any further concrete proof . I had the initial thought that it was a mistake, and that the DRM-free version will eventually be offered this week, but apparently, that’s not the case. I am quite sure also that, if you download the DRM-ed version, you will not be able to iTunes Plus it to the DRM-free version later. My library consists of quite a large number of Singles of the Weeks which I collected throughout my membership with iTunes and I was not offered an upgrade after the initial Macworld announcement.
I am not sure if this trend will continue, but with Apple’s pledge to remove the DRM locks by end of March 2009, this isn’t much of a problem. But if you are an audiophile looking for nothing but the best, getting those freebies at 256 kbps encoded and DRM-free is a must.
UPDATE: It seems that both Stop the Clock tracks are still in 128 kbps, with DRM, although the album page says iTunes Plus. I’m not sure why, but the Discovery Download track is available as iTunes Plus version. I’ll try purchasing thru my iPod touch tonight and see if this is the case.
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