Free at last, free at last ... Finally, four years after Apple iTunes opened for business, one of the four major record companies has agreed to drop digital rights management and allow unfettered MP3s to be sold online. Good golly Miss Molly. Everybody gets something out of the Apple EMI deal. The record company gets relief from the 99 pennies per ditty pricing Apple has imposed on singles, something the industr Free at last, free at last …Finally, four years after Apple iTunes opened for business, one of the four major record companies has agreed to drop digital rights management and allow unfettered MP3s to be sold online. Good golly Miss Molly. Everybody gets something out of the Apple EMI deal. The record company gets relief from the 99 pennies per ditty pricing Apple has imposed on singles, something the industry has been whining about for years. Non-FairPlay files will cost 30 cents more than their locked-down cousins. (Thus revealing the true cost of P2P file swapping — just a smidge less than the $750 per song the RIAA has been claiming in its lawsuits.) Consumers get to play tunes on something other than an iPod, as well as higher quality sound for their home stereos. Apple gets to play the knight in shining white satin, but more important, it gets a wedge against European Commission complaints about its monopolistic tendencies (though the EC’s still all shook up about iTunes’ arcane country-by-country pricing schemes). But don’t be fooled. This isn’t about freeing up iPod owners. It’s about smoothing the waters for the iPhone, especially overseas, where the cell phone market is bigger and more sophisticated than Back in the USA. No DRM means fewer EU objections and, possibly, more consumer enthusiasm for dropping $600 on a phone instead of $300 on a pod.Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose. I think I heard that somewhere. Got heavy metal tips or grungy gossip? Talk to me, baby. The top tipsters will receive a free “I Spy 4 Cringe” bag. Software DevelopmentSmall and Medium Business