EMI to sell music DRM-free via iTunes
EMI is going to be selling all their music online DRM free, and Apple is the first to sell it.
CUPERTINO, California—April 2, 2007—Apple® today announced that EMI Music’s entire digital catalog of music will be available for purchase DRM-free (without digital rights management) from the iTunes® Store (www.itunes.com) worldwide in May. DRM-free tracks from EMI will be offered at higher quality 256 kbps AAC encoding, resulting in audio quality indistinguishable from the original recording, for just $1.29 per song. In addition, iTunes customers will be able to easily upgrade their entire library of all previously purchased EMI content to the higher quality DRM-free versions for just 30 cents a song. iTunes will continue to offer its entire catalog, currently over five million songs, in the same versions as today—128 kbps AAC encoding with DRM—at the same price of 99 cents per song, alongside DRM-free higher quality versions when available.
No word yet on whether indie bands will be able to go DRM free if they want, but it’s still a huge step in the right direction despite the price premium.
Now all we need is for the other labels to follow suit.
See also: EMI press release, with audio webcast.
