Could Apple Introduce Unlimited iTunes Song Re-downloads this Year?

Although Apple’s iTunes music service is uber-popular, it’s not devoid of some major issues. While one I’d love to see resolved is the lack of lossless music, I’d be willing to say a more important one is allowing people to download a purchased song more than once. In its current state, iTunes isn’t too forgiving in the event of a hard drive crash, and while it’d be easy to blame Apple, you can’t.

Instead, the problem relies with the music industry. In order for Apple to allow unlimited downloads (or at least, more than one), the music industry needs to agree, and put that agreement to paper. Of course, these companies aren’t exactly known for being the most open bunch around, so Apple has quite a fight on its hands. But it is one that the company is actively engaged in.

It’s hard to say whether the deal will go through, but in the sake of consumer interest, it’d be great to see it happen. Currently, if you lose your iTunes collection, Apple might give you one free pass to re-download everything, but the keyword here is “one”… it’ll never happen a second time. If you have hundreds of dollars wrapped into iTunes purchases, this rule can burn.

The fact of the matter is… with this lacking ability to re-download music, other solutions are going to look more attractive to a lot of people. 7Digital, for example, is a service that allows users up to three re-downloads, which suffice to say, is likely enough for most people. Not to mention, there are also free music services online that can fulfill the needs for many users. It’d sure be nice to have little perks like unlimited re-downloads when you’re actually paying out-of-pocket for your music.

A deal would provide iTunes customers with a permanent backup of music purchases if the originals are damaged or lost, said the people. The service also would allow downloads to iPad, iPod and iPhone devices linked to the same iTunes account, they said. The move would be a step closer to universal access to content centrally stored on the Internet.