Apple (and Ben Taylor) finally release some DRM-free music
May 31, 2007 – 12:09 am | by Benjamin WattToday Apple finally updated iTunes, adding the recently announced addition of higher quality music minus the usual Digital Rights Management all bought music from there had. Sure only EMI are onboard so far, but it’s a start.
Last night though I was at the Lemon Tree in Aberdeen seeing Ben Taylor play (son of the rather better known James Taylor). Aside from it being a great gig (he’s touring just now, so keep an eye out), and also a funny one (as in ‘ha ha’), Ben was also the first musician that I’d come across that didn’t just sell CDs of his music after the show. Yeah, you could buy either of his two albums on CD, but he also had nicely boxed USB sticks ready to roll as well, where he’d stick on his albums, his live work, anything he’d ever recorded released or unreleased, and all at cheaper prices (on the whole) than on iTunes. It didn’t exactly move the queues along quickly, but there he was diligently copying over whatever anybody wanted to a USB stick from his Apple MacBook Pro (which he also used in his gig for some of the backing music), free of any copy protection. More money in his pocket, and more opportunity for fans of his music to get something they can’t get anywhere else, right from the source.
In fact, here’s someone who’s so in touch with how music distribution has changed, that when deciding he wanted to play one of his father James Taylor’s songs ‘Belfast to Boston’, on the Ireland part of his tour, he realised he had no idea how it actually went, and downloaded it from iTunes to work it out for himself.
I thought it was a nice touch, and a sign of the times in the music industry - yes Apple has helped get a lot of music out there legitimately, but the artists are all capable of doing it themselves too already, and without the copy protection and fees.
I just bought one of his albums on CD though 
