As announced two months ago, iTunes launched today the EMI
songs as a DRMfree music tracks featuring high quality 256 kbps AAC encoding
for just $1.29 per song.
EMI catalog includes singles and albums from Coldplay, The
Rolling Stones, Norah Jones, Frank Sinatra, Joss Stone, Pink Floyd, John
Coltrane and more than a dozen of Paul McCartney's classic albums.
“We definitely think it's the right thing to do,” Eddy Cue,
Apple's vice president of iTunes, said Wednesday. “In this case, EMI's a leader
and we think others will follow.”
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 the higher quality
iTunes Plus versions when available. In addition, iTunes customers can now
easily upgrade their library of previously purchased EMI content to iTunes Plus
tracks for just 30 cents a song and $3.00 for most albums.
"This is a tremendous milestone for digital
music," said Eric Nicoli, CEO of EMI Group. "Consumers are going to
love listening to higher quality iTunes Plus tracks from their favorite EMI
artists with no usage restrictions."
Two months ago, Steve Jobs ignited a real revolution after
he published on Apple’s website an open letter entitled “Thoughts on music” in
which he alled on the four major record companies to start selling songs online
without copy protection software known as digital rights management (DRM).
“Since Apple does not own or control any music itself, it
must license the rights to distribute music from others, primarily the “big
four” music companies: Universal, Sony BMG, Warner and EMI. These four
companies control the distribution of over 70% of the world’s music. When Apple
approached these companies to license their music to distribute legally over
the Internet, they were extremely cautious and required Apple to protect their
music from being illegally copied. The solution was to create a DRM system,
which envelopes each song purchased from the iTunes store in special and secret
software so that it cannot be played on unauthorized devices.” wrote Jobs in
his statement.
Shortly after EMI and Apple announced their collaboration,
Microsoft’s Jason Reindorp, marketing manage for Zune , hinted that Zune
Marketplace may also sell DRMFree songs.
Last week, Amazon.com, the Internet retailer announced it
will offer EMI's entire digital catalogue, which is available in a higher
quality, DRM-free premium download format, for sale in its new digital music
store. The Amazon.com digital music store will exclusively offer tracks and
albums as MP3s free of digital rights management (DRM) restrictions.
