ITunes strips songs' copy protection

Macworld attendees check out display models of the new MacBook Pro laptops yesterday. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

SAN FRANCISCO - Apple Inc., the most popular source of music in the United States, stripped copy protection from all the songs in its iTunes music store and disclosed plans to charge as little as 69 cents a track.

Under a variable pricing plan, songs will cost 69 cents, 99 cents, or $1.29 starting in April, with most albums going for $9.99, Apple marketing head Phil Schiller said yesterday at the Macworld conference in San Francisco. He spoke in place of chief executive Steve Jobs, who said Monday he's undergoing treatment for a "hormone imbalance."

Apple had drawn criticism for using so-called digital rights management on most tracks, prompting Jobs two years ago to make a public plea to music labels to change their licensing terms. The protections prevented customers from listening to music on unauthorized devices and limited the copies they could burn onto CDs. The company also faced competition from Amazon.com Inc., which charges as little as 79 cents a song - with no copy protection.

While record labels liked having DRM, they also wanted variable prices, letting them charge more for popular songs, said Barry Jaruzelski, a partner at the consulting firm Booz & Co. in Florham Park, N.J. Until now, Apple sold most tracks for 99 cents each.

Starting yesterday, about 8 million songs were being offered without copy-protection software as part of the iTunes Plus service, Apple said. By the end of March, the other 2 million songs in its catalog will be available without such software.