Apple's Macworld announcement that the entire iTunes catalogue is ditching the God-awful DRM that has kept it back is fantastic news for music lovers worldwide. After all, now you can purchase music that you can listen to on whatever device you want, however many times you want, all for the same price (until their new pricing structure kicks in, I guess). But what about the tunes you've already purchased, laced with hidden DRM and holding your music collection back?

Well, despite the fact that you can purchase the same tracks for the same price without DRM, if you've already purchased a DRM-encoded version, you'll need to pay Apple 50 cents per track to remove the restrictions, or $1.00 per track for music videos.

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Effective immediately, T-Mobile is eliminating the $18 fee it charges customers to upgrade to a new phone. I'm glad to see that T-Mo came to their senses here—penalizing a customer for upgrading is ridiculous. ... Read More »

The specifics have not been announced, but Sprint will finally join Verizon, T-Mobile and AT&T in pro-rating their early termination fees starting as early as December. That means the fee drops each month you spend with the service instead... Read More »

A California Supreme Court judge has just ruled that early termination fees from mobile phone companies violates California state law and are illegal. What's this mean to you? Sprint Nextel has been ordered to pay US$18.2 million in reimbursements to customers who already paid their ETF, and to stop trying to collect US$54.7 million from customers who cancelled and refused to pay. But if ETF fees are illegal, does that mean 2-year contracts—which in turn give you subsidised price on your mobile phones—will be a thing of the past? Tough to say, but we're headed towards some change. [Mercury News via Yahoo]

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As promised last year, T-Mobile is finally reducing its early termination fees, so breaking your contract to get some actual 3Gness won't pound you quite as hard. Instead of declining month-by-month, the fee goes down in weird increments. ... Read More »

According to Ars, one AT&T attorney told the FCC yesterday that early termination fees we pay for leaving our contracts before the designated time are actually a great deal for us. His reasoning was that "ETF-backed term contracts give consumers... Read More »

The FCC might be getting up in mobile phone providers' collective grill, telling them what they can and cannot charge to customers who quit their service early. A proposal to them outlines some changes consumers want enacted, including free termination... Read More »