Yesterday, news broke that Apple would be cutting the prices on its DRM-free music. from $1.29 to just 99 cents. While this in and of was news, something even more significant was going un-noticed.

Apple had now effectively become the first online music vendor to make DRM-free songs a better value than its DRM counterpart in the same store...

18 Oct 2007

In order to justify charging the higher price for DRM-free songs originally, Apple had to provide the songs at a higher bitrate. This allowed them to argue that users were paying more for a higher-quality song, and that the absence of DRM was just an added perk.

A little-noted line in the news is key: the iTunes plus songs will retain their 256kbps bitrate despite the lower price. There is currently no indication that the DRM-encoded songs will have their bitrate increased form the current 128kbps format.

So this means that both the DRM and non-DRM songs will cost 99 cents. The non-DRM music, however, will be a much higher quality than the song with DRM.

Yes, some stores sell songs without DRM, but how many of them have now made a deal that actually rewards customers for choosing not to use it?