EMI/iTunes DRM free music, yay or nay?

I’m leaning towards nay. They’re adding almost 1/3rd more to the price to enable us to do what we should rightfully be able to do to begin with. I find it comical that they’re finally offering higher quality 256kbps for that additional $.30 too which should have been an option from the get go.

Jobs says that they’re trying to give us what we’d get if we’d just bought the CD and ripped it directly. In defense of that, full album purchase prices remain unchanged, encoded at 256kbps, and are DRM free. But isn’t the beauty of buying music online getting to choose which songs you want? You can read more about the announcement here.

I can’t imagine what would happen to my father’s paintball business if he sold $99 gun for use on his fields only, but if you wanted to take it to another field, he’d tack on another $30. But hey, they give you a free barrel plug if you do that (which should come with the $99 gun anyways). I have a feeling everyone would buy their equipment on the internet for much less and play wherever they want.

Maybe it’s a step in the right direction, but it’s certainly not a giant leap for mankind. What do you think?