Submitted by Bradley Baker06.04.2008
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This prediction is closed and has been judged.
Following Napster's lead, Apple will start offering DRM-free music through iTunes by the end of 2008 in a more widespread strategy.
This prediction will be judged as a success if iTunes offers a significant number of DRM-free tracks (significant being defined as 1,000,000 or more). The pricing structure may differ from that of tracks with DRM. Non-music offerings (movies, TV, etc.) with or without DRM have no bearing on this prediction.
An announcement of future availability is not sufficient for a successful judgement of this prediction, the songs must be actually available.
Note that Apple and iTunes already offer SOME DRM-free music. Songs from EMI are available for $1.29/song in a DRM-free format and have been for about a year.
This prediction is set to close on December 21st. It will be judged either when iTunes starts offering 1,000,000+ DRM-free music downloads or soon after the end of the year, whichever comes first.
(Ed. Note: If DRM-free music is indeed made available on iTunes in a major way, judgement may be slightly delayed until the DRM-free song libraries' quantities are calculated.)
UPDATE: Apple press release showing iTunes has over 2M DRM-free tracks. Prediction closed, judged at 100%.
Price History
Prediction Statistics
| Betting Closes: | Dec 21 2008 | Current Consensus: | 90.02% | Total Bets: | 38 |
| Today's Change: | 0% | ||||
| Life Time High: | 92.76% | ||||
| Life Time Low: | 31.00% |
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Comments
This prediction was over before it even started. Apple's iTunes Plus initially offered EMI tracks DRM-free back in September 2007 but no other major labels followed suit. Then, a month later, Apple dropped iTunes Plus rate to 99 cents and added independent labels to bring in additional 2M DRM-free tracks. As indicated by the official press release by Apple (http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/10/17itunes.html), iTunes Plus offers over 2M tracks DRM-free which satisfied the judgment criteria of 1M+.
A more recent metric can be found in Sept 10 Washington Post article (http://twp.com/detail.jsp?key=276824&rc=robpeg_tech&p=0#___1__) where iTunes Plus now has over 4M (approx half of its overall 8.5M catalog of tracks.
@TIS, is the DRM-free song library quantity on ITunes being calculated? Per various articles, the 1M+ mark has been surpassed to satisfy judgment criteria.
Seriously - there has been a significant amount of DRM-free music on iTunes for a long time now. I'm just now looking at the details of this prediction - from the headline I assumed it meant all DRM-free, since they've had so much DRM-free for so long now.
There are well over 1M iTunes Plus tracks back in 2007, probably closer to 4M now.
@Kevin, exactly. That was why I said "was over before it even started". This won't be the first one like that. Another one that was moot prediction is http://www.thestandard.com/predictions/cafescribe-acquired-october-2009.
The criteria for judgment is very clear ... " It will be judged either when iTunes starts offering 1,000,000+ DRM-free music downloads or soon after the end of the year, whichever comes first.". I am estimating nearly 4M DRM-free songs at this time as well.
@TIS, what is keeping this prediction from being judged? I have had prediction $ locked in this for nearly 1 month now.
Bradley Baker created this prediction. Where do you source your 1,000,000+ DRM-free music data?
@Bradley, can you comment on your prediction here?
@Eric, sources are in previous comments and submitted URLs in Predict Early points to > 1M DRM-free songs in iTunes Plus.
I meant ... "Judge Early" instead of "Predict Early".
@eric The link directly to an Apple press release from 10/17/2007 specifically states there were more than 2M iTunes Plus (ie DRM-free) tracks at that time.
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/10/17itunes.html
This shouldn't actually have ever been a prediction, but since it is, it should be judged and closed.
Kevin
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