NPR has an interesting blog entry on “What ‘Mastered For iTunes’ Really Means”. I hadn’t spotted this since I’ve been a life long Apple avoider. It’s not that I think Apple has bad products, it’s just they always, always look for a way to lock users into their systems. I’ve felt for a long time that the music industry would eventually find a way to strike back at MP3. In this case it makes perfect sense. Pay particular attenion to the last two paragraphs.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2012/02/24/147379760/what-mastered-for-itunes-really-means