SAN FRANCISCO — Apple is cutting the price of some songs in its market-leading iTunes online store to 69 cents and plans to make every track available without copy protection.
In Apple’s final appearance at the Macworld trade show, marketing chief Philip Schiller said Tuesday that iTunes song prices will come in three tiers: 69 cents, 99 cents and $1.29. Record companies will choose the prices. Apple previously priced all songs at 99 cents.
Apple gave the record labels that flexibility on pricing as it got them to agree to sell all songs free of “digital rights management,” technology that limits people’s ability to copy songs or move them to multiple computers. Apple had been offering a limited selection of songs without DRM, but by the end of this quarter, the company said, all 10 million songs in its library will be available that way.
Iconic singer Tony Bennett, left, performed “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” for Apple, which plans to pull out of Macworld next year. The Associated Press; AP photo
