EMI May Remove DRM From Parts of Catalog

An anonymous reader writes "Ars Technica is reporting that EMI may announce on Monday that it will be freeing much of its catalog from the shackles of DRM. The Wall Street Journal, in a subscription-only portion of its site, is saying that that Apple CEO Steve Jobs will be present at the announcement in London and that the music will be sold through the iTunes Store and possibly other online outlets. In early February rumblings were heard that EMI was thinking about ditching DRM, but EMI was unable to entice the likes of Apple, Microsoft, and others. As it turned out, EMI wanted a considerable advance payment to offset what it perceived as a risk: selling DRM-free music online. EMI's position was simple: if they sell music without DRM, then users will find trading it that much easier." There's also rumours of an Apple/Beatles announcement sometime today, perhaps tied into this drm decision.

Comments

Stop IT!

[ebackbone]

hello?!?! it's already april 2. stop posting april fools material!! :@

(that's what you get when you go overboard slashdot admins)

Re:Will it play on iPod and Rio?

[Khakionion]

"Or am i still locked into iTunes iPod combination?"

DRM is what locks iTunes purchases to the iPod. If you buy non-DRM tracks, they will play on anything capable of reading that format. The iTunes Store sells AAC tracks, so chances are it will work with any modern music player.

Re:If this is true....

[Anonymous Coward]

If it is true (and let's all hope so), I expect dozens of Apple haters who have been claiming that Steve was lying about Apple's preference for no DRM to man up and apologize here in this thread.

If it's not true, well, there's always another day.

Re:Will it play on iPod and Rio?

[Corporate Troll]

If your Rio supports m4a files (assuming the non DRM will be AAC) and presents itself as a disk drive to your operating system, then the answer is yes. Right now you can just select and drag songs in iTunes to any folder and it will simply copy the files. It even does this with protected files. It's a useful feature for backing up.

Not a joke

[daveschroeder]

Reuters and the Wall Street Journal are already reporting it.

Re:Not a joke

[mykdavies]

Hot off the EMI website:
http://www.emigroup.com/Press/2007/press18.htm

Apple has announced that iTunes will make individual AAC format tracks available from EMI artists at twice the sound quality of existing downloads, with their DRM removed, at a price of $1.29/1.29/£0.99. iTunes will continue to offer consumers the ability to pay $0.99/0.99/£0.79 for standard sound quality tracks with DRM still applied. Complete albums from EMI Music artists purchased on the iTunes Store will automatically be sold at the higher sound quality and DRM-free, with no change in the price. Consumers who have already purchased standard tracks or albums with DRM will be able to upgrade their digital music for $0.30/0.30/£0.20 per track. All EMI music videos will also be available on the iTunes Store DRM-free with no change in price.

Re:Will it play on iPod and Rio?

[jonbryce]

You may need to transcode it into a format the Rio supports, but without the DRM, that won't be a problem other than either a slight loss of quality or a much larger file size.

Confirmed!

[datafr0g]

On EMI's website....

http://www.emigroup.com/Default.htm

DRM-free downloads: EMI Music launches DRM-free superior sound quality downloads. From 1pm London time there will be a live audio webcast of this announcement.

Press Release here: http://www.emigroup.com/Press/2007/press18.htm

Press release says "entire digital repertoire"

[Nicolas MONNET]

From the press release:

EMI Group CEO Eric Nicoli today hosted a press conference at EMI's headquarters in London where he announced that EMI Music is launching DRM-free superior quality downloads across its entire digital repertoire and that Apple's iTunes Store will be the first online music store to sell EMI's new downloads.

... therefore, not just parts of it.

EMI artists

[clickclickdrone]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_musicians_sig ned_to_EMI

Re:Will it play on iPod and Rio?

[i_should_be_working]

The DRM free music will not just be for iTunes, so they won't just be in AAC. So all players benefit, just not from iTunes which will probably still sell in AAC.

Read about it here:
EMI's press release

I wonder if indie labels will also be able to sell non-DRM'd tracks on iTunes now.

Looks like it *is* true

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

As I write this, the BBC have a "breaking news" article that appears to confirm that EMI are dropping mandatory DRM.

Short version: you will be able to buy DRM-free files, which will cost you more, but will also be of higher quality. You will also be able to upgrade existing DRM'd music to the "premium" DRM-free format for a small fee.

Re:Looks like it *is* true

[Fahrenheit 450]

Here's the press release from Apple.

A push to sell albums instead of individual tracks

[swissfondue]

Please note that the price is still the SAME for albums, but you will get drm-free 256 bit encoded AAC tracks as of May.

This is also a push to help sell albums (which become even cheaper in comparison to individual drm-free tracks). This is inline with the recent iTunes Store "upgrade to album" offer.

USD 1.29 x 12 songs = USD 15.46 as compared to an album price of USD 9.99.

So if I buy 8 songs from an album, it is cheaper to buy the album. This compares to 10 individual tracks from the same album under previous pricing.

Re:If this is true....

[Lars T.]

(Restored partially parted quote)

I expect dozens of Apple haters who have been claiming that Steve was lying about Apple's preference for no DRM to man up and apologize here in this thread.

I said Jobs was hypocritical for arguing against DRM while Apple seems happy to dish DRM out to its customers.
You said

Am I mistaken that Jobs was enthusiastic about DRM in the early days?