Re: Where do you get your music?
There's no doubt that iTunes isn't a first-class citizen on Windows, or vice-versa. It is definitely slower and less refined. Still, for the constraints of the Windows ecosystem including the way screen readers work, I think Apple have made it as clean and as well-integrated as possible. Most of the "Bloat" people find in iTunes is actually just libraries that Apple ported over from Mac OS to Windows so it could run iTunes on top of those substrates, which while it clearly suits Apple very well, doesn't make for happy hardcore Windows users. This is, in all important respects, no different from the situation Mac users face running MS Office; the Windows experience using Office is just plain better. No doubt also a very non-altruistic scheme to screw the blind.
Check under Help, Keyboard Shortcuts. There are quite a few of them. If you are on JAWS make s ure you have the latest updates, and if you want even more speed there's JTunes. The FSCast on iTunes was also quite informative. I found Window-Eyes to be more responsive than any other screen reader using iTunes, which makes sense since Apple specifically suggests it, but I don't see why you should have any difficulty no matter your screen reader of choice; it simply takes a good bit of getting used to it. And I think you'll find that iTunes is very important in the education sector, so the chances of accessibility being compromised in the future are probably quite small. It'd be nice if they allowed access to their stores without the application though; I'm sure that would go a long way for many typical use cases.
You can tell if a music file is protected because the extension is "m4p". If it isn't, and it won't be for any music tracks you now buy, you have DRM-free. Your stream will play these files, and since converting between lossy formats is not a very good idea, I'd recommend you download and keep your originals. I'm glad there are accessible alternatives for purchasing though. The real catch is the iBook store; some of what they sell is, and some is not, protected, and you don't find out until you purchase it. Everything else is DRM, of course.
In tangentially related news: iTunes Match now allows the upload of 100,000 tracks (up from 25,000).
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