EMI music on iTunes to be sold without DRM

Leland · Post by **Leland** » Mon Apr 02, 2007 5:00 pm

LONDON, April 2 (Reuters) - EMI Group Plc (EMI.L: Quote, Profile , Research) said on Monday it was making its music catalogue available through Apple Inc's (AAPL.O: Quote, Profile , Research) iTunes store without the anti-piracy measure known as digital rights management (DRM).

"The new higher quality DRM-free music will complement EMI's existing range of standard DRM-protected downloads already available," EMI said in a statement as the company began a joint press conference in central London with Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs.

What the Reuters summary somehow missed is that the new, higher-quality tracks will be priced at $1.29. Notice, however, that they will not replace the existing $.99 songs. Buyers will have the option of choosing either version. Also, if a customer already has tracks from EMI, they will be able to upgrade to the better-sounding, DRM-less versions at $.30 per track.

Also, the higher quality is indeed pretty high quality for compressed music, being 256 kbps instead of the iTunes store's standard 128 kbps. When I want to rip stuff to sound really good, I use at least 190, and I can only tell the difference if I purposely listen to the source CD back-to-back with good headphones. 256 kbps is a much higher bitrate than I use normally.

Also at CNN, BBC, AP, Business Week, C|Net, and a whole bunch of others.

Transcript of the Q&A session immediately after the announcement is posted here:
http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=2624

fpoon · Post by **fpoon** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 8:48 am

I might actually buy music online now, at least from EMI. I use iTunes a lot myself, but only download the free stuff on every Tuesday.

If your computer bites it, Apple has records of what you have bought - is there any way to get it back or are you screwed?

fpoon · Post by **fpoon** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 10:37 am

Well, thats a big turnoff for me. Until Apple tells assures me that they'll let me download the content I've already purchased they won't get my business.

Optical discs are crap and DRMless non 128 kps AAC mess is a great step in the right direction. But Apple needs to take that last step and treat us the customer rightly.

Yeah, I know if I lose or damage a CD the music store is gonna go tell me to bite myself, but until hard drives become solid state, I'm just not cool with having all these files I've purchased on the computer (and other backup drives) being one time deals.

TMurphy · Post by **TMurphy** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 1:11 pm

If you don't own a Mac (and most iTunes users don't), why should Apple be responsible if your harddrive failed??? You should always back up important files in case of harddrive failure, and music is no exception. Those of us who do use Macs *might* have a little more leeway in that argument ("it was the drive I bought from your company that failed"), but Apple is very clear about telling you to back up your music.

fpoon · Post by **fpoon** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 1:19 pm

I have a Mac - I don't think thats relevant.

Hard drives fail. Period. There is no way around it. Backups fail. I backup my stuff to an external firewire drive. What are the odds of both drives failing? Minimal. But the odds of that happening is greater than me losing ALL my CD's at the same time.

Apple needs to have a policy that in the event of hard drive failure, you should not have to pay for something twice. They have records of what you have downloaded. This would increase their business cause I'm sure a lot of other people like myself don't do business with them for that very reason.

Is there a way this could be corrupted? Sure. I guess another way around is to buy the DRM free music, share it with all your friends and then you have a ton of "backups" out there.

Leland · Post by **Leland** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 4:40 pm

fpoon wrote:If your computer bites it, Apple has records of what you have bought - is there any way to get it back or are you screwed?

If you bought it yourself, with your money, yes, Apple will give you those tracks again. If you got them via a gift card, I don't think Apple will give you the tracks for free.

I've got a friend who had this happen, and those were the results.

Of course, anything digital & important should be backed up (it's a lot easier than backing up physical documents, anyway). If you've got a library small enough to fit entirely onto your iPod, there are a number of ways to get the files off the "play-only side" of the iPod and back onto the computer (iTunes will pull iTMS purchased songs if you ask it to, and other non-iTMS tracks require other methods; the free utility called "Senuti", iTunes spelled backwards, is still the best for Mac users).

fpoon · Post by **fpoon** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 6:39 pm

If you bought it yourself, with your money, yes, Apple will give you those tracks again. If you got them via a gift card, I don't think Apple will give you the tracks for free.

Sounds reasonable. Now DRM free HD video and I'm sold. Much more efficient than discs.

And yeah, Senuti rocks.

Leland · Post by **Leland** » Fri Apr 06, 2007 8:08 pm

Not every iPod owner has a full-size iPod, and some people have more music than can fit onto even the big 80-gig model. But, yeah, I use my 60-gig iPod as my own iTunes backup.