What is iTunes plus?

I've noticed that some albums appear twice on iTunes, they have the same songs and they are the same price. The only difference I can see is a slightly difference shade of album cover.
So what's the difference?

DRM and quality:
iTunes Plus refers to songs and music videos available in our highest-quality 256 kbps AAC encoding (twice the current bit rate of 128 kbps), and without digital rights management (DRM). There are no burn limits and iTunes Plus music will play on all iPods, Mac or Windows computers, Apple TVs, and many other digital music players.
That’s from
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1711
Regards
TD

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ITunes Plus Music

I don't know how but I apparently have 231 songs ready to be 'updated', or what ever iTunes Plus does. The total cost for 'updating' all of my songs/videos is $95.40. How on earth am I supposed to 'update' all of my songs/videos when I will never be able to reach that much money? Every month, as an allowance, I get $10; and right now I'm at $11.38.
I've been using, and downloading music off, iTunes for about 6 years. I would, manually, 'update' my songs/videos when I noticed they needed to be 'updated'. But how is it that probably 95% of my purchased items are being 'updated' all at the same time?
What do I do?!

You don't have to update your songs all at once, you can update them individually and choose to update as many as you wish: iTunes Plus FAQ

HT201272 There are purchased items that are no longer showing in the iTunes store because I upgraded to iTunes Plus format. What can I do? My hard drive crashed and lost a great deal of my music and it's not showing in iCloud.

What can I do to see items that I have purchased but upgraded to iTunes Plus? They are not showing in my iCloud as purchased, but I still can see the original protected versions from old backups. The original was downloaded with my iMac but the computers hard drive has burned out and needs to be replaced.
Please help.
Thank you.

Thanks for the reply although I'm not too happy to hear it. What's awesome about the cloud is no longer having to keep up with any physical media. The promise of that is realized with everything else (my work, music, books) besides movies and TV.
I wonder how Google Play will handle movies/tv that becomes unavailable? Google Play does allow you to download media in some circumstances (on Android and iOS) but is generally intended for streaming. Maybe relying on a physical copy as I do with iTunes should make me more comfortable with it and not less.
I will come back to mark your reply as the solution as it becomes clear there is not a contrary position. Thank you.

HT4623 What's with audio xciter, it only plays a few songs, ones that it won't gives me a message ,upgrade to iTunes plus, what's with that, oh, it ALso says the music is drm protected, upgrade to iTunes plus?

Anyone know what's wrong with audio xciter? It tells me to upgrade to iTunes plus, what's that?when I play my music, it plays a few but wont others because it's drm protected, maybe wrong word and tells me to upgrade to iTunes plus, think I bought junk software!

I am seeing the same thing. 95% of my songs are DRM protected -according this app. But they are not. Hopefully someone has an aswer. The web page support for Xciter does not mention this issue.

I forgot my ipod password and i didnt use it for along time so it wont even connect to itunes plus it fell in the toilet so my home button and volume button doesnt work what do i do?

I forgot my ipod password and i didnt use it for along time so it wont even connect to itunes plus it fell in the toilet so my home button and volume button doesnt work what do i do?

Place the iOS device in recovery mode using this program
RecBoot: Easy Way to Put iPhone into Recovery Mode
http://jaxov.com/2010/05/recboot-iphone-recovery-mode/and then connect to your computer and restore via iTunes. The iPod will be erased.
iOS: Wrong passcode results in red disabled screen
If recovery mode does not work try DFU mode.
Enter DFU mode without home button or Power Button | technoNix
For how to restore:
iTunes: Restoring iOS software
To restore from backup see:
iOS: How to back up
If you restore from iCloud backup the apps will be automatically downloaded. If you restore from iTunes backup the apps and music have to be in the iTunes library since synced media like apps and music are not included in the backup of the iOS device that iTunes makes.
You can redownload iTunes purchases by:
Downloading past purchases from the App Store, iBookstore, and iTunes Store

What Songs are iTunes Plus in iTunes 9 Store?

I just upgraded to iTunes 9. In the iTunes Store, you used to be able to tell which tracks were iTunes PLUS because they had a little "+" sign next to them. Now, none do? What does this mean? Is this a bug? Are ALL iTunes audio files now iTunes PLUS? Are none of them?
Unless something is ONLY available as the old 128kbps low-bit rate, DMR'ed file format, I will NEVER, EVER buy anything in that format. Period. I am only interested in the 256kbps, DRM-free iTunes PLUS files that are twice the bitrate and that I can play at work via VLC Portable since I can't install iTunes at work.
Can someone help me out? You can't even do a "GET INFO" on items in the store any more...
I'd greatly appreciate any assistance/insight.
Best Regards,
Zack

All songs in the store are plus now...a while back they made the switch; that's when they started charging .69/.99/1.29 for tunes....that was the compromise for DRM free tunes was variable pricing for the record companies.
Most DRM tracks in your library can be converted over to plus, the exceptions are anything you have gotten as a "free" download. Pretty much everything that downloads as a free song of the week (before the change) or via a redeemable code (I picked up a free itunes sampler a couple of years back) didn't get ther DRM removed and cannot be converted to plus.
Hope that helps.

Okay, what is the deal with ITUNES plus?

I've read multiple threads and post. I've downloaded the new version. From what I've gathered, it seems only EMI artists are currently part of the ITUNES plus? I also understand you are "supposed" to be getting a better quality of sound from artists you download from Itunes Plus? Furthermore, I see they increased the price for a single download for any artist associated with ITUNES plus. Now... anyone care to explain to me what all this mention of DRM-free means? Does this mean we can actually convert our purchases to mp3's and upload them up to our non-apple music player? Because this is all I care about at this point. However, since it's only restricted to EMI artists and I haven't a single tune downloaded from that companies' artists, this new version means squat to me. Does this mean, eventually the other companies will jump on the band wagon, and we'll be able to finally convert our music to play on any music player? I hope so. But for now, it just seems like Apple just found a way to charge us more for their songs. Hmmm?
Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Almost since the inception of iTMS and later iTS the Internet has been rife with people complaining about Apple's use of DRM on music tracks. Obviously no record company was going to sign up to DRM-free music on the first day of iTMS as it seemed obvious that it would be onward distributed with no financial recompense to the record company so DRM was used to allow the track to be played on five computers and any number of connected iPods (very generous really). However acknowledging the discontent around the globe Apple's CEO Steve Jobs wrote his Thoughts on Music. Shortly after that EMI obliged Apple's request and agreed to offer DRM-free music that you could potentially totally abuse and send to all your friends (Don't though). Apple and EMI believe that, in actual fact, the ease of iTS will mean that people won't do that but they will actually buy music themselves. Actually iTunes Plus trackscontain your iTS username so it's traceable.
Advantages of iTunes Plus:
256k (vs 128k) encoded tracks - better quality for the serious audiophiles.
DRM-free means you can load your tracks on to your generic mp3 player/mobile phone etc.
Freedom - not tied in to the iPod platform (a big risk to Apple IMHO).
Disadvantages of iTunes Plus:
Higher cost.
Greater file size = less tracks on your iPod.
EMI tracks only.
I think it's a good idea to offer the choice, and a few cents extra for the freedom is probably worth it. I see this as Apple driving and leading the music industry to improve the service for us the customer. Happy Days.
mrtotes

What does it mean when upgrading to iTunes Plus?

Ok ~
So was about to upgrade to iTunes Plus, and when I click it I find this:
106 Total Songs
14 Songs
5 Albums
And then I'm given a price. I'm not sure what the break down is, or what 106, 14 are in comparison to one another. And I thought I had purchased more than 5 full albums, but whatever there. Now I have about 300 total songs listed in music I have purchased, so why only 106? I thought that more than 80% was in Plus as of last October? Could it be that a majority of my songs are not Plus yet?
Hopefully someone can make heads and tails out of what this means.
Thanks,
Chaz

In my experience...not everything has been upgraded to iTunes Plus...yet. I downloaded a huge number of upgrades a few weeks ago and now it seems like every three or four days when I connect to the iTunes store I'm alerted about more iTunes Plus upgrades available.
My advice...after you accept and install this upgrade, sort your library by "kind" to see how many more "protected aac" tracks you still have listed.
On Edit: iTunes Plus tracks will show up in your library as "purchased aac".
Message was edited by: samdogmom

Unable to upgrade to itunes plus. What's wrong???

Virtually all of the songs I've tried to buy in the last few weeks require an upgrade to itunes 7.2 or higher to download. I am currently using 7.0.
When I click the icon to "upgrade" it takes me to a screen that explains itunes plus and an icon that says "free upgrade". I click the "free upgrade" icon and nothing happens. What's wrong?

Have you tried downloading the latest iTunes (7.6) directly from:
http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/
Then installing from the downloaded file.
If you are having trouble getting the download to work, try:
http://filehippo.com/download_itunes/
If you can download the update but you are having trouble getting it to work post any error messages.

What happened to itunes plus in 10.7

What happened to the iTunes plus quick link in 10.7?

They took the link away and when I called said to use the Match function instead.

What happened to iTunes Plus?

What happened to the link on the front page of the Music Store that I could click to tell me which songs I could upgrade to iTunes Plus?

Hi,
It's disappeared from the iTunes Store, but weirdly if you click the link on Apple's Support Page it will take you to your "Upgrade my Library" page.
The Link is at the bottom of the "+Can I upgrade previously purchased music to iTunes Plus?+" section.
Regards

What happens to iTunes Plus upgrades now?

I have 70 songs (out of 1,165) that are still in the "old" format in my library. I upgraded every song Apple let me when they became available. Many of my 70 remaining songs are available in the iTunes store in the plus format, but it won't give me the option to upgrade them. I have tried emailing Apple multiple times, but can't really get a straight answer.

Here is an excerpt from today's Washington Post:
"The company says that it sometimes has trouble matching up new iTunes Plus releases with their earlier, DRMed incarnations if there are slight differences between the two; in those cases, you should report the discrepancy through its "Contact iTunes Store Support" form.)"

Anyone notice it depends on what songs your downloading .. iTunes Plus ?

I can't see this mentioned in the posts I have read but some iTunes plus downloads download really well.. and others don't.
Take Enigma.. downloads really fast.
Paul Van Dyk .. Have been waiting days for it to work..
Anyone else seeing this strange behaviour.. ?

My problems appear to be somewhat "alphabetical"--but I also am guessing the more "popular" tracks downloaded okay for a reason. I'm having trouble getting less mainstream tracks to download at all right now----GRRRRRR! Things seem to be somewhat alphabetical--but--I've got a few David Gray songs (from an album I downloaded!) that are trying to prove me wrong! Others in the mix include Dianne Reeves, The Band, Steve Miller Band, and Simply Red. They simply won't download for some reason! GRRRRRR!

ITunes Plus Upgrade--No help from iTunes Support

I appologize for this lengthy post. Believe me I have more to the story, but want to keep it as short as possible. Bottom line is I'm looking for help with iTunes plus upgrade please.
My specific problem is getting customer support to upgrade my old iTunes songs iTunes to iTunes plus so I can use them on our new Sonos player. It’s now been almost a week since this issue arose and there has been no help in getting my problems solved. My main problem is that there is no telephone customer support for iTunes. All of the support for iTunes is now done online through emails. That is a huge issue in my mind, but not the purpose for this post.
Here is my problem..
I have two iTunes accounts. Account # 1 was my primary account until 2008/09 time frame when I switched from a PC to Macbook Pro. I have 314 songs from 2006-08 that were purchased on Account #1 that I'm trying to upgrade to iTunes Plus. Account #2 is now my primary iTunes account. The Account #2 songs are all iTunes plus and do not need upgrading. I now have all the purchases from both accounts on my Mac Mini serving as a HTC, but the old iTunes DRM songs cannot be played on Sonos until they get upgraded.
My issue solely relates to my old songs on Account #1. I have been trying to upgrade my account 1 songs since last Thursday. My iTunes store account is currently logged into Account 1 when attempting the updgrade. When I first made the purchase, I got the on screen message that I’d get an email with instructions to complete the purchase. Well three days passed and I never got the email. I also noticed that my purchase of $104 showed up as three “pending” credit card charges on my bank account records. This seemed odd so I called Apple for help. Big mistake!!!!!
When I attempted to call Apple Support I was continually given to “technical support” for either my Macbook or Mac Mini. They never listened to what I was saying. In fact one rep told me I would need to pay the $39 fee for technical support on my issue!!!! Finally, after speaking to three different individuals one of the “tech support” reps was able to contact an iTunes support rep. Note, that I could not speak to them, rather it was strictly apple employee to apple employee. I was placed on hold for thirty minutes while they worked on my issue. After thirty minutes I was told to go to the iTunes store and start over. I went to iTunes store and completed the purchase again. Shortly thereafter, I received an email response from iTunes saying:
Dear Tom,
Your iTunes Plus music upgrade could not be successfully completed because there was a problem with one of the items that was to be upgraded. Please return to your Upgrade My Library page and click Buy and your upgrade should be processed successfully. We are sorry for the inconvenience and appreciate your business.
Sincerely,
iTunes Store Team
Based on this email. I went to iTunes store again and tried the purchase….again. I then got the same email response a short time later. I have attempted two other times to buy the upgrades but got no email responses at all. Late Sunday, I called Apple again and also used their online iTunes support page. I got one response late Sunday evening asking a question about error messages, I answered their question by providing them the above iTunes notice. That email late Sunday night was the last communication I've recieved from iTunes support. It’s now three days later and I’m still waiting to hear back from someone at iTunes support. All I want to do is spend 104 dollars to upgrade my 300+ songs, but no one at Apple seems to care.
I am really disappointed in Apple’s customer service. I’ve been a fan of Apple for quite some time, between my wife and I, we have 6 Apple products in our home. The lack of customer support is really disgraceful.
Anyone have any ideas.

This is a follow up. Finally, after almost 72 hours, I recieved another email from the original iTunes support representative. According to her, the problem is that one or more of my songs on the account are either not eligible for the upgrade or the file is corrupted and can not be upgraded. In short I cannot use the "Buy All" feature because I will always hit this roadblock. The only way to resolve this, is to upgrade each song individually or select a few songs at a time to upgrade.
I will have to do this until I get the song or songs that is causing the problem. Once I have identified the song(s), I can chose to repurchase them and get a refund. All songs today are at the DRM free format so repurchased songs will automatically be the upgraded file.
So I'll now begin the upgrade of the 314 songs. I guess it could be worse.
Okay, I got an answer and an offer of a refund, but this answer certainly could have been provided three days ago. Am I being unreasonable?

ITunes Plus/Upgrade My Library Won't Detect Some Eligible Items

I've seen a couple of threads on this topic, and I'd like to submit my own.
This thread will serve the dual purpose of providing a possible answer to the problem and bringing to attention iTunes Store customer support's poor response thus far.
Here's the problem in a nutshell: When iTunes Plus was made available, I upgraded my Library because I have quite a few EMI records (all bought through the iTunes Store within the last few months), including Pink Floyd's 'Dark Side of the Moon', 'The Wall', 'Animals', and 'Wish You Were Here', among others.
The Upgrade successfully purchased and downloaded iTunes Plus albums for my entire EMI collection except for 'Dark Side of the Moon' and 'Animals'. When I return to Upgrade My Library in the iTunes Store, it claims my Library is completely up-to-date, when in fact it certainly isn't because two of my EMI albums are still 128 kbps DRM protected, despite the fact that the iTunes Plus album is available in the iTunes Store at full price.
Several other people are experiencing the same problem with Pink Floyd and Norah Jones. Strangely, some cannot Upgrade 'The Wall', while mine Upgraded with no problem whatsoever.
What's so buggy about Upgrade My Library, Apple? How can we manually rescan the Library so that these lingering eligible albums can be Upgraded?
I have gone back and forth with iTunes Customer Service about this issue. My first reply I received a day after filling out an error report at the Support Page.
Dear Travis,
I understand that you are unable to upgrade two of your Pink Floyd albums that are available for purchase as iTunes Plus music. I'm sorry for this trouble.
Apple is currently working toward a resolution for the issue you have reported. You will receive an email after the matter has been investigated and further information is available.
Thank you for your patience. Apple wants your iTunes experience to be as enjoyable as possible.
Sincerely,
Cordon
iTunes Store Customer Support
I received a follow-up four days later:
Dear Travis,
I'm sorry you ran into an error when you tried to upgrade your iTunes library. This error was caused by a temporary issue with the iTunes Store that should be resolved now. Please check the iTunes Store again. All features should be working well.
If you received this error while downloading a large purchase order, please understand that the cause of the error may be a combination of the size of the order you are downloading and the speed of your connection. Please try another connection that is faster than your current connection. If this is not possible, please continue to attempt to download your purchase. This may take several attempts.
Sincerely,
Cordon
iTunes Store Customer Support
And of course, the problem hadn't been resolved as stated. So I sent a reply:
No, I'm afraid you don't understand.. I can't try to download the iTunes Plus versions of my Pink Floyd albums Dark Side of the Moon and Animals because the iTunes Plus Library Upgrade says I have nothing to upgrade.
Why is it telling me this when I have the two albums in the protected 128 kbps format, which I bought from the iTunes store only months ago? Is there a cookie I need to reset somewhere, or is this an iTunes Server issue? Why isn't 'Upgrade My Library' recognizing these two albums?
If you can't solve the issue and allow me to upgrade, would you instead credit my account for the full price of both iTunes Plus albums I'm having trouble with?
To which Apple disappointingly replied today:
Dear Travis,
I understand you tried to upgrade your iTunes Library and all but "Pink Floyd albums Dark Side of the Moon and Animals," were upgraded. I know how frustrating this can be and I would be happy to assist you.
You can upgrade eligible previously purchased music to iTunes Plus. You will see any available upgrades on the new Upgrade My Library page. When you click the Upgrade button, you will replace all the eligible music and music videos you've bought previously on iTunes with available iTunes Plus versions of the same content (you cannot choose to upgrade only some of the items). The upgrade price is calculated based on all of your eligible content at 30¢ per song, 60¢ per video, and 30 percent of each album's purchase price. iTunes Plus music will continually be added to the iTunes Store, so your upgrade offer may change at any time. Please check back often to find new music available for upgrading.
For more information, please visit the iTunes Plus FAQ:
http://www.info.apple.com/kbnum/n305567
I hope this answers your question.
Thank you for choosing the iTunes Store and have a great day!
Sincerely,
Sandra
iTunes Store Customer Support
This email is the specific reason I'm posting this issue. I am curious why I would be sent a blatantly common FAQ response instead of the accurate and personal response I'm used to getting from Apple.
If they cannot figure the problem out, why don't they come out and say it, then give me a credit to my account so that I may purchase the iTunes Plus albums rather than troublesomely try and Upgrade them?
Any workaround or comments are welcome, both from Apple consumers and employees.
My apologies in advance to the outstanding Apple team that makes up 99% of the company. I don't intend to let one bad apple (no pun intended, honestly) sour the reputation of the lot of you.
20 Inch iMac Intel Core 2 Duo 2.16 GHz Mac OS X (10.4.9)

I've done some comparisons of the File Info between my DRM-Protected 'Dark Side' and 'Animals' songs and the DRM-Free versions. It turns out there are differences which might explain the trouble Upgrade My Library has in recognizing eligible albums.
On 'Animals':
Standard http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a249/travisschiller/Picture2.png
Plus http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a249/travisschiller/Picture1.png
Notice the difference in the album art and, notably, the Copyright information. This is not the same song with only quality affected. Apparently, there was some copyright changes that took place, which might critically affect the eligibility of an album or songs.
The same with 'Dark Side of the Moon':
Standard http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a249/travisschiller/Picture4.png
Plus http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a249/travisschiller/Picture3.png
Notice here, too, the running time of the song is different.
All that needs to be done by Apple is a configuration of Upgrade My Library so that it will recognize these previous versions of these albums for those of us who bought it before the revision took place.
20 Inch iMac Intel Core 2 Duo 2.16 GHz Mac OS X (10.4.9)

What is iTunes plus?

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