At Apple’s annual special music event, this year dubbed “It’s only rock and roll, but we like it” they announced a new, old-style album-centric offering called iTunes LP. The image painted was of a young Steve Jobs, grabbing his bike, riding to the music store, buying the latest Dylan on vinyl, racing home, putting it on his turn table, and then lying back and listening, while pouring over the album art, liner material, lyrics, and other extras.

Fast forward to the era of CDs, and ultimately iTunes and digital downloads, and extras became less common, as did buying entire albums. For lazy artists who made one or two good songs and loaded the rest with filler, well deserved. For true artists who wrote albums like epics, like symphonies in multiple parts, well… the listener was the one missing out.

Admittedly, when we first heard about iTunes LP, code-named Cocktail, we worried that Big Music was trying to force Apple to force us to buy those lazy, filler-filled albums, and maybe even sneak DRM (Digital Rights Management) back into our freshly-liberated iTunes.

Turns out that young Steve Jobs and his Dylan album was closer to what we get with iTunes LP than a Big Music lock down scheme. And thank goodness for that.

Web developer Jay Robinson (via Daring Fireball) has taken a closer look at iTunes LP, and provided lots of great details for those interested in the format. Like what?

• The iTunes LP files are ITLP format and rather large (~500MB)
• They’re in 720p, (which is confusing for smaller display sizes like on some laptops, but might make sense on Apple TV, or dare we say, an iTablet“>iTablet?)
• iTunes LP visualizer
• Internal structure uses WebKit (the foundation of Safari) for rendering, HTML 4.01, CSS, and Javascript.
• And best of all — DRM-free! (YES!)

Check out Robinson‘s full write up for a lot more on the new iTunes LP format, and if you try it out, tell us what you get and how you like it!

When Apple first announced it was going DRM-free at Macworld 2009, they set up a system where users who previously bought the old, lower quality, copy-protected music could upgrade to the new, higher-quality, non-protected music for $0.30 per single track.

Problem: it was all or nothing. If you had 100 tracks, you had to upgrade every single one of them, all at once, which would set you back $30 (or $300 for 1000 tracks). Now, Macworld (via TUAW) says Apple has seen the light, bowed to pressure, or otherwise fixed the lame, and is allowing users to pick and choose, and upgrade only the music they want on a per track basis.

So, head on over to iTunes to see which of your music tracks [iTunes link] are eligible for upgrade, but make sure you have 1-Click enabled (for now, to avoid some sort of glitch in the system).

Seems like a great step in the right direction for us. Anyone more likely to upgrade now that we don’t have all-or-nothing dangling over us?

You saw the epic liveblog, now see the photos.

We have the deets in photo on the new 17″ MacBook with the ridiculously large 8 hours of battery life, the fact that iTunes is going 100% DRM-Free, the new iLife with GarageBand Music Lessons, iMovie’s stunning upgrades, and iPhoto’s geo-tagging and face-recognition, and also the new iWork with Keynote — which now has an iPhone-based remote for switching slides and reading your notes.

Um, yeah, this was a huge Macworld for Mac people — and the iTunes DRM news and the Keynote news were incredibly great upgrades for iPhone owners.

Makes you weep that Apple will never go to a Macworld again, don’t it?

Phil Schiller, during his Macworld Keynote (see our MASSIVE live blog!) today, announced — as rumored — that iTunes is going DRM-Free! 8 million songs will be available in higher-quality 256-bit, DRM-free iTunes Plus format immediately, the remaining 2 million or so songs following by the end of the quarter.

In order to wrestle this concession from Big Music, however, Apple had to give them a concession of their own: variable pricing. Apple had long resisted this policy, preferring the unified $0.99 model (a brief flirtation with $1.29 iTunes Plus pricing not withstanding). Today, however, Schiller announced a 3 tiered structure:

• $0.79 for older, catalog songs
• $0.99 for mid-tier
• $1.29 for premium (hot new singles?)

Upgrading will cost $0.30 per song, $060 per music videos, and whole albums for 30% of the album price.

So, is it working for you yet? And are you upgrading? Or just buying new song?

Pre-Macworld rumors are flying with CNet reporting that Apple has finally succeeded in getting Big Music to allow iTunes to sell DRM-free (non-copy protected) music, something long ago granted to competitors like Amazon MP3.

The cost? Variable pricing. Apple has tried to hold the line at a consistent $0.99 per song pricing (briefly flirting with a premium $1.29 for iTunes Plus’ higher bit-rate, DRM-free music before dropping it back down to $0.99 as well). Now, the same rumor holds that Apple will let Big Music sell the latest, hottest hits at a much higher rater, and older, catalog titles at a reduced $0.80 price point.

The best news for iPhone owners? The iTunes Store App currently only allows music downloads via WiFi, but that might also be changing — to direct downloads via EDGE or 3G.

Would you be willing to pay more for the Top Tens and less for the oldies? Or did they have you at iPhone 3G downloads?

Apple Insider has published a rumor saying Apple’s iTunes service is about to match Amazon MP3 by going DRM free. This follows on a previous story saying Apple was in negotiations to do just that.

Since the introduction of iTunes Plus (the name given to the higher-quality 256 bit DRM-Free music), only EMI has allowed Apple to carry their music in that format, with Warner, Sony, and Universal refusing to do so, instead only offering them to iTunes competitors like Amazon, Napster, etc.

What’s changed? Maybe nothing. Or maybe iTunes has just kept growing stronger and is now in a position where they can negotiate the same, consumer friendly deal?

The rumor says we may see the change as soon as tomorrow, December 9th.

On the rare occasions when I hit iTunes looking for music, I go immediately to iTunes Plus. When it comes to DRM music, I’m just not gonna do it, so if I can’t find it on iTunes Plus, I can’t find it. Trouble now is, I can’t find iTunes Plus! Used to be in the Quicklinks, but now it’s gone missing from the iTunes Canadian Store. Maybe MacRumors knows:

Forum user Doodledoo has been following it closely and found evidence of tracks from both Warner and Sony studios participating in iTunes Plus. Apple originally launched their DRM-Free iTunes Plus format with the support of only EMI but recent rumors have suggested Apple is working on winning over the other three majors studios (Warner, Sony, Universal).

Whazzat? Really? Could it be that Big Media is finally learning that treating customers to fair use for fair price is the way to go? In a word… “no”. According to Apple Insider, progress and all, the Beatles are still going to need some help:

“EMI want something we’re not prepared to give ‘em. It’s between EMI and The Beatles I think – what else is new?,” McCartney said. “Last word I got back was it’s stalled at the moment. But I really hope it will happen because I think it should.”

So are we finally on the cusp of a revolution? Is (music, at least) DRM dying? And will all of us be long gone before the Beatles show up for download as well?