Apple dropping DRM-free tracks to $.0.99?

Here's the latest from the Apple rumor mill: in response to Amazon.com's new DRM-free music store, which sells tracks for $0.89-$0.99, Apple is said to be dropping the price of iTunes Plus tracks to the standard $0.99 price. As you'll recall, the company has charged $1.29 for DRM-free tracks since the launch of the iTunes Plus store in April. As it stands, EMI will continue to be the only major label offering DRM-free tunes through iTunes, though Apple is supposedly going to open up iTunes Plus to independent labels as well. According to Ars Technica (who has a pretty good track record with these sorts of predictions, I might add), the announcement is scheduled to go down sometime this week, so keep your fingers crossed if you like your music DRM-free.

For more on the rumor:
- see this Ars Technica article