Apple Inc CEO Steve Jobs discusses his company's "iTunes" product at Apple's "Let's Rock" media event in San Francisco, California September 9, 2008.

BEIJING, Jan. 7 (Xinhuanet) -- Apple said songs on its popular iTunes digital music service will no longer be saddled with copy-protection software.

The news was released by Apple's senior vice president Phil Schiller who replaced CEO Steve Jobs to do Apple's presentation Tuesday at the Macworld trade show in San Francisco.

DRM, shorthand for Digital Rights Management, is the "protection" that is encoded into purchased digital audio files, such as songs from iTunes.

Apple previously sold most songs for 99 cents, with copy-protection software attached. In April, all song prices will change to one of three tiers: 69 cents, 99 cents or 1.29 U.S. dollars.

By then, Apple expects to have removed the copy-protection software from all its digital music. About eight million unrestricted songs are available today.

It was likely a compromise between music companies and Apple.

Record companies have pushed for varied pricing. Apple faced competition from online retailer Amazon, which started selling unrestricted music in 2007.