Apple will remove copyright protection on most songs sold from its iTunes music store and introduce variable pricing for different tracks.
The announcement was made Tuesday at the Macworld trade show in San Francisco, which Apple said last month it will no longer attend after this year.
Pricing will now be done in three different tiers: 69 cents, 99 cents or $1.29, depending on the recording company the song comes from.
Songs were previously 99 cents each and almost all songs had copy protection, or digital rights management software (DRM) that prevented users from putting the songs on other devices. It also stopped them from illegally sharing songs with others.
Reports say eight million of iTunes' 10 million songs will be offered DRM-free. Record labels had wanted variable pricing strategies introduced after Apple Inc. CEO's Steve Jobs asked to have DRM dropped from tracks.
