iTunes Freebies vs iTunes Plus Downloads

[kiancheong]

I posted this over at my site, check my signature.

Here's an excerpt:

I actually caught this last week, but wasn?t quite sure about it as I have already download both songs that were offered for free and redownloading doesn?t give me any further concrete proof . I had the initial thought that it was a mistake, and that the DRM-free version will eventually be offered this week, but apparently, that?s not the case. I am quite sure also that, if you download the DRM-ed version, you will not be able to iTunes Plus it to the DRM-free version later. My library consists of quite a large number of Singles of the Weeks which I collected throughout my membership with iTunes and I was not offered an upgrade after the initial Macworld announcement.

Anyone else seeing this behavior? If yes, are your tunes upgradable to the DRM-free version?

 

[kiancheong]

UPDATE
I realised that on some occasions, going to a song's album does not guarantee you the DRM version.

Take this week's Stop the Clock tracks (both English and Spanish) for example. The album page shows the iTunes Plus logo, but once you add the said track into your shopping cart, the iTunes Plus logo is gone. Purchase the shopping cart and you'll see yourselve downloading the DRM-ed version. This does not happen with the Discovery Download track (Beni's My Love Sees You).

The only sure method I found so far is to download those tracks using your iPhone or iPod touch. I managed to get all the tracks as 256 kbps DRM-free versions thru this method.

Conclusively, end of March seems to be a long way to go knowing that such a bug/feature exists.

 

[Jeremy]

I upgraded all my music with no issues like you described.