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EMI-Apple to sell DRM-free music

post #1 of 6
4/2/07 at 12:39pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
EMI's entire music catalog will be available in premium DRM-free form via iTunes in May, the music label said Monday at a press conference in London.

Higher-quality music files, which will play on any computer and any digital-audio player, will not replace the copy-protected EMI music currently sold through iTunes. Rather, they will complement the standard 99-cent iTunes downloads and will be sold at a premium: $1.29 per song.

Consumers who have already purchased EMI tracks containing Apple's FairPlay copy protection will be able to upgrade them to the premium version for 30 cents, EMI said. Full albums in DRM-free form can be bought at the same price as standard iTunes albums.
http://news.com.com/2100-1027_3-6172...-0-5&subj=news
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post #2 of 6
4/2/07 at 1:03pm
Unless you have one of the handful of other portable players that can play M4A, you'll still have to re-convert the tracks to something else if you want to listen to them away from your computer. And while the lack of DRM will make that process a lot less of a hassle, it'll still involve quality loss - 256k AAC is a big improvement over 128k AAC, but it isn't lossless and it isn't compatible with enough non-Apple hardware. Still, kudos to Apple and EMI for taking important steps in the right direction.
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post #3 of 6
4/2/07 at 4:01pm
Thread Starter 
Interesting thing: EMI is also considering selling their video content DRM free. That's a first.
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post #4 of 6
4/2/07 at 4:56pm
I wish they had released this information yesterday, there's no way anybody would have believed it.
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post #5 of 6
4/2/07 at 8:51pm
I certainly can't believe it if I see no evidence of it in iTunes Store, and no approximate date as to when these DRM-free tracks will be available.
EDIT: Oh. Apparently reading the quoted article reveals the date near the beginning. Doh.
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post #6 of 6
4/3/07 at 7:51am
Maybe this move (and similar by other companies, one would hope) will actually drive further acceptance of the AAC codec.
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