Students purchasing music through iTunes may notice a cost increase that took effect last Tuesday.

Popular music will cost as much as 30 percent more through a new variable pricing system. Before the new pricing, Apple charged a flat 99 cents for every tune. However, record companies had been pressuring Apple for more pricing flexibility to offset declining CD sales. In January, Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of worldwide product marketing, said the company would switch to tiered pricing: 69 cents a song for the older catalog, 99 cents for most new song and $1.29 for the most popular tracks. Steve Jobs, CEO and co-founder of Apple Inc., also said at the time that Apple would offer its whole catalog free of digital-rights management, a copyright-protection technology. Now, consumers are able to make unlimited copies and play the songs on any device.

Releases from new artists will be sold at a lower price, while more well-known artists will be tagged with a higher rate. Most of the 10 million songs in the iTunes catalog are expected to remain at 99 cents.

Students who listen to older music or buy CD's instead of singles won't be as affected by the price hike.

"Basically it's just a logical business move," said junior Rebecca Price. "It doesn't really affect me because I don't buy that many songs, and I listen to a lot of older music."

Other Vanderbilt students said they think that the price hike could be a fatal decision for the music giant.

"Wouldn't it make sense to try to price it cheaper instead of turning away the few people who are still willing to pay for music?" said junior Marcus Jones.

Sophomore Anne Hopkins said she thinks an increase in price will encourage students to illegally download music.

"The extra 30 cents adds up," Hopkins said.

In 2007 the Recording Industry Association of America sued 23 Vanderbilt students for illegally downloading music from their computers.

Although Vanderbilt supplies legal music download options, earlier this year Napster terminated its nationwide Napster on Campus program, which had provided a free and legal music downloading service to Vanderbilt students for the last four years. Although Napster offers a discount to Vanderbilt students, it is no longer free.

Morgan Smith-Williams contributed reporting to this article.