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

Will it play on iPod and Rio?

[freedom_india]

All this removing DRM is fine, but if i download from iTunes, will i be able to drag-drop the same into a Rio?
Or am i still locked into iTunes iPod combination?
I own only an iPod, so i would not notice it even, but for some who own a Rio/some other music player, can i buy from iTunes, and then listen to it on Rio?
If not, then iam moving from a closer jail to a bigger jail.

And MP3???

[Anonymous Coward]

What about MP3, getting rid of the DRM makes it easier to put on my MP3 player but I'd still rather just buy the damn MP3 VBR format to start with.

I have to say I'm suspicious, I just want to buy the music, I don't want to sign up to a store that may or may not have DRM'd music, I just want to buy a track and know it will be mp3 vbr, with no nasty surprises, and no complicated EULA, and no BITE ME IN THE ASS drm.

Am I asking too much? I have money, real money with no EULA to sign before you take it, it is yours to spend, I'm not claiming any IP rights over this money. You know, you sell me a copy of what I want, I give you money in exchange. Remember the good old days???

Will you go back and eat your words?

[daveschroeder]

To all the people who thought Jobs' statement was PR bullshit to deflect criticism and that it "never really intended" to remove any DRM from any of its tracks, will you now go back and eat your words?

All the folks who erroneously expected/thought that Apple should have been able to do this in "2-3 days, tops" on a massive service and infrastructure like iTunes, will you now go back and eat your words?

To all of the people who think Apple can just "flip a switch" for indies, utterly ignoring the fact that there may be other binding legal or contract obligations that need to be ironed out, will you now go back and eat your words?

For the people who ignorantly don't realize that there is a massive support operation behind iTunes, and Apple doesn't want to break things or confuse customers, and wanted to do it right, and wanted to force the labels' hands such that a big one would jump first, will you now go back and eat your words?

I'm willing to wait at least for the official announcement, but since Reuters and the WSJ have already independently reported this, all you naysayers who kept on saying this was just a big PR conspiracy by Apple and they really were oh-so-in-love with DRM and iTunes/iPod lock-in that they'd never remove DRM, you're welcome to use this thread for your apologies.

This, if all the reports really are true (and no, it isn't the result of an April Fool's joke for anyone who still thinks it is), represents the biggest shift in online media since online media itself: the biggest online store, actively willing to sell content without DRM, proving that Apple isn't interested in DRM and did only apply it because of studio demands.

And then, pragmatically getting ALL of the major studios onboard into online sales, working in countless countries and jurisdictions with different legal systems, doing something that no other company had done before, and just biding its time and dropping the no-DRM bombshell in the form of Jobs' statement.

I know people probably won't thank Apple for this, especially the folks who love to hate Apple. But for all of the people who ask "what Apple ever does", or "how do they innovate", here's yet another answer.

Re:Will you go back and eat your words?

[swissfondue]

Michael Gartenberg is giving the credit where it is due: "It is a good step forward for consumers but more importantly, it showed Apple at the forefront of acting as "champion" for consumer interests. After all, it wasn't Rob Glaser or Bill Gates up there with EMI. "

Re:If this is true....

[Fahrenheit 450]

Yes. Because becoming powerful enough to change something from the inside is always the wrong way to go.
Jobs had next to zero leverage when they started the iTunes store, he couldn't get the labels to do spit. Now he's got a bit of flex, and with EMI in his corner he's helped to open up the market to DRM-free major label music downloads. How horrible of him...

Of course, this won't mean anything if the consumers aren't willing to pay extra for their freedom or higher bitrate encodings.