April 2nd 2007. Remember that date as the day DRM died, well at least started to die. It appears as though Steve Jobs’ call to abolish DRM was heard by someone at EMI, who will begin selling DRM-free music on the iTunes Store.
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.
Unfortunately, the DRM-free music costs a bit more, but it’s a start. I must run to class, but let me know what you think of this news. Be sure to check out TechMeme to get a scope of how big this news really is.
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
great news, although the need for a 30c price hike seems to be clearly a demand of emi, so at least apple kept the 99c model for users who are happy with drm.
but good news alround hopefully other labels will follow shortly.
I have stuck a transcription of the Q & A at the end of the presentation on my blog, at http://musingsonamac.com/blog/2007/04/emi-slides.html
Overall the response has been positive, I wouldn’t call EMI going DRM free the day it started to die. Maybe had a small Myocardial embolism that can get much worse if the sales of DRM Free HQ tracks and albums take off.
Steve spoke about setting iTunes to default to DRM free tracks if available. Is your time worth enough to spend the $0.30 or 20p instead of re ripping the track yourself. Will you hear a difference, honestly, in a Hi-Fi track versus a current option… I might if I’m playing through my best headphones and not off my macbook pro which adds a subtle buzz anyway… is that worth 20 pence.
Maybe.
It’s also a clearer way of distinquishing the DRM music from the non-DRM music…..
This is really, really great! DRM and the low quality were the only things that held me back from buying more than the occasional song.
I don’t care about the 30 cents – albums stay at the same price!
I’m with the Sebastian: I think it’s a very good news! I hope more labels will jump on the DRM-free bandwagon… :)
The most radical thing about this snippet of news for me is that I heard it first on BBC news! I came online and there was hardly anything about this deal anywhere for at least 5 minutes :) Traditional media isn’t dead yet then :p
As for the DRM-Free deal itself – about time. When the supposedly intelligent people behind all the big media providers realise that DRM drives piracy not the other way round? People will allways take the easier route. If the easier route happens to be ‘free’ and illegal, then that’s the route people are going to take. Not only do legal downloads have to be easier than using bit torrent etc, they need to be fair.
I am happy to pay for content if it becomes mine to use as I please (within reason). Lets face it, DRM is one of the biggest wastes of time and money all round in this industry. The sooner it goes the better!
This, along with the hopeful EU grumbling at iTunes price hitch for those in the UK and Europe as opposed to the US is making iTunes more attractive all the time. That said, since allofmp3 got nobbled by Visa I have no choice except iTunes or PirateBay, and my guilt is getting the better of me these days.
So if they’re selling us “premium” quality tracks now, what WERE they selling us before? #!%$@
Paul: Any idea why this posts keeps updating in Bloglines?
@Bryan – No idea, I haven’t touched this post since it was first published. The thing you speak of has happened once before with another post. It stopped doing that after it left my feed (most recent 35 posts).
@Paul: Alright, no worries. If it was more feeds, I might get irritated; in this case, it’s just you. ;)
Like Bryan, I’m seeing this post everyday in Bloglines (twice today already). I guess I’ll just ride this one out. :)
Unlike Nicole, I’ve unsubscribed from here.
…
I juss kidding!
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