Apple Dropping DRM from Audio, Keeping It On Video

Apple announced today that it plans to ditch digital rights management (DRM) restrictions on the music it sells through the iTunes Store. By the end of March, all 10 million songs on iTunes will be DRM-free. (Here's more from Macworld's Web site.) Cleverly, Apple will also sell you an "upgrade" to your existing music library, peeling off the DRM wrapper, for just 30 cents per song. Music without DRM is much easier to move from one device to another.

But DRM (Apple's is called FairPlay) will still be affixed to all videos sold by iTunes.

How long do you think that will last? Especially given that everyone in Hollywood pays lip service to having learned important lessons from the digital distribution experiences of the music industry?