Did Steve Jobs bury the lede in Apple's iTunes Plus announcement?

Peter Burrows

Roughly halfway down the announcement of iTunes Plus, Apple's store for higher-quality (and higher cost) DRM-free music, Steve Jobs is quoted as saying "We expect more than half of the songs on iTunes will be offered in iTunes Plus versions by the end of this year." Unless Apple is planning on coming out with a slew of iTunes Plus versions (say, one with songs with a higher bit rate, but with DRM), this can only mean one thing: Jobs thinks at least some of the other major labels are ready to follow EMI's lead by dropping DRM.

I spoke with some industry sources who say those deals are not about to close. Many folks think the other labels will wait to see what happens with EMI's sales this quarter, before deciding to abandon their commitment to DRM. But Ed Lewis, a consultant with RelevantC LLC in Chicago, thinks Jobs will get his way. “This tends to be a fast follower market, and EMI is a significant player. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if there’s a cascading serires of announcements with other content providers [such that] half the iTunes catalog is DRM free by the end of the year.”