DRM and the iTunes Music Store

When the iTunes Music Store initially launched in 2003, all music sold contained Apple’s “FairPlay” Digital Rights Management (DRM) copy protection as a way of preventing piracy. 

The iTunes Music Store no longer uses DRM.  The change was announced in the 2009 Macworld Expo keynote and was implemented by the end of January 2009.

Music files from iTunes Music Store containing DRM use the .m4p suffix while the DRM-free versions use .m4a.

The image below shows the visual indicators of music files containing DRM.

Today, all music purchased from the iTunes Music Store is DRM-free and presented in 256kbs AAC format (Advanced Audio Coding) with a .m4a suffix. 

dfbills notes: Strangely enough, some of the free songs given away for various promotions do still contain DRM.  These .mp4 files can be found in various samplers and even free “songs of the week.”