As up update to monday’s post, Apple today released iTunes 7.2, which includes iTunes Plus, Apple’s name for DRM-free downloads. Despite the press release‘s implication that the DRM free tracks are online, I dont’ see them yet.
UPDATE: To see the DRM free tracks, you have to click the iTunes Plus link in the Quick Links box on the right side of the iTunes Store. After agreeing to the iTunes Plus Terms Of Service , the plus tracks do start to show up in the regular store. The enhanced tracks can be recognized by a ‘+’ icon next to the price (and the price itself).
As a sidenote, these DRM free tracks also include your account information in the download files, so you might not want to share them:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070530-apple-hides-account-info-in-drm-free-music-too.html
I saw this posted on slashdot as well. It is worth noting that the information isn’t hidden. It’s available by doing a “Get Info” on any file from within iTunes. Also this data has always been embeded in tracks purchased from the iTunes store.
What identifying data I’ve been able to locate in the file, (name, username, and potentially timestamp) can be easily stripped out with a hex editor or any program that allows editing of id3 tags.