I think the biggest news out of the Macworld keynote today was the announcement that the iTunes Store is now largely DRM-free, and completely so by March.

Steve Jobs wrote thoughts on music almost two years ago, which left quite an impression on me. Many were sceptical of Apple’s intent at the time, but Apple repeatedly put their money where their mouth was—first with EMI, then with several smaller labels, and today, with the lot. Top work, I say.

Conceding tiered pricing to the record companies, which Apple have been holding back on for some time, seems to be a small price to pay—especially since I imagine that the top price bracket will be occupied mostly by new releases and useless pop music.

Secondly, and this is why I think this is so important—we’re in a situation now where every major avenue you can purchase music through is DRM-free. That’s worth thinking about for a moment! CDs, the iTunes Store, and the Amazon MP3 store are all (or by the end of March, will be) totally DRM-free.

Here’s a thing: every major avenue you can purchase video through is DRM-encumbered. DVDs, Blu-Ray, Netflix, iTunes Store video.

So, what the hell? Video hasn’t caught up to audio yet? People think of video differently and will tolerate DRM? The movie industry thinks of it differently? Video is pirated more aggressively? Or maybe the left hand just doesn’t know what the right hand is doing?

I think it’s a couple of things, but I think this is a crucial difference: music has a certain permanence that movies and TV shows do not.

When I buy an album, I expect to listen to it lots of times—if I grow to truly love the album, maybe dozens or hundreds of times. But I can’t imagine watching even life changingly good movies more than a couple of times.

I’m probably biased because I live and breathe music and don’t care all that much about movies or TV (with notable exception), but I think that’s still a fairly major factor in the psychology of both the record companies and the listeners & viewers.

Whatever the reason, this is huge news. Hat tip to Apple for doing it live, hat tip to the record companies for coming to their senses, and genuflection to the artists whose music I love.