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Apple revealed the new scheme after signing agreements with the four major music labels. 8 million tracks are already available on iTunes without DRM, priced at 79p price, just as they were previously. The new tracks also offer higher sound quality, with a bit-rate of 256Kb/sec compared to the old 128Kb/sec.

However, upgrading your old iTunes downloads to the new version will cost 20p per trac, which represents over a quarter of the original price of the download. Whole albums also cost 25 per cent of the current sale price to upgrade.

DRM was designed to prevent music fans from illegally sharing digital downloads using filesharing services. However, Apple's DRM-laden tracks also prevented users from moving their own songs between devices, so became increasingly unpopular.

However, the record labels finally agreed to allow retailers to sell DRM-free songs in a bid to help increase competition in the digital music market.

iTunes will offer all 10 million songs free of digital rights management by the end of the quarter, according to Apple's senior vice president of marketing Phil Schiller.