Following Napster's lead, Apple will start offering DRM-free music through iTunes by the end of 2008 in a more widespread strategy.

This prediction will be judged as a success if iTunes offers a significant number of DRM-free tracks (significant being defined as 1,000,000 or more). The pricing structure may differ from that of tracks with DRM. Non-music offerings (movies, TV, etc.) with or without DRM have no bearing on this prediction.

An announcement of future availability is not sufficient for a successful judgement of this prediction, the songs must be actually available.

Note that Apple and iTunes already offer SOME DRM-free music. Songs from EMI are available for $1.29/song in a DRM-free format and have been for about a year.

This prediction is set to close on December 21st. It will be judged either when iTunes starts offering 1,000,000+ DRM-free music downloads or soon after the end of the year, whichever comes first.

(Ed. Note: If DRM-free music is indeed made available on iTunes in a major way, judgement may be slightly delayed until the DRM-free song libraries' quantities are calculated.)