London, 2 April 2007 - EMI Music today announced that it is launching new premium downloads for retail on a global basis, making all of its digital repertoire available at a much higher sound quality than existing downloads and free of digital rights management (DRM) restrictions.
Eric Nicoli, CEO of EMI Group, said, "By providing DRM-free downloads, we aim to address the lack of interoperability which is frustrating for many music fans. We believe that offering consumers the opportunity to buy higher quality tracks and listen to them on the device or platform of their choice will boost sales of digital music."
In May, Apple's iTunes Store will be the first online retailer to offer EMI's catalogue in two formats: at standard audio quality with DRM, or, for a premium price, improved audio quality without DRM restrictions. Specific details are as follows:
News source: EMI Music Press Release
Eric Nicoli, CEO of EMI Group, said, "By providing DRM-free downloads, we aim to address the lack of interoperability which is frustrating for many music fans. We believe that offering consumers the opportunity to buy higher quality tracks and listen to them on the device or platform of their choice will boost sales of digital music."
In May, Apple's iTunes Store will be the first online retailer to offer EMI's catalogue in two formats: at standard audio quality with DRM, or, for a premium price, improved audio quality without DRM restrictions. Specific details are as follows:
- Standard tracks: 128kb/s AAC, DRM protection, locked into Apple players, $0.99/€0.99/£0.79
- Premium tracks: 256kb/s AAC, no DRM protection, interoperable with non-Apple players, $1.29/€1.29/£0.99
- Previously bought EMI tracks can be 'upgraded' to higher quality and DRM-free for $0.30/£0.15
- Albums: offered with the above premium features at the same price prior to the announcement.
- Music videos: also offered DRM-free.
News source: EMI Music Press Release
Cool, hope everyone else has sense too. I still think they should scrap the 128kb/s DRM tracks all together though.
Some people don't care about the DRM, and would most likely rather pay 30 cents less because of that fact.
And I think they're targetting people like me. It's mutually beneficial for the consumer, EMI and Apple as the first retailer to offer it.
Yea, it's an easy excuse to charge more. They could easily just replace one with the other but money talks.
Anyway, I'm happy there's at least one big music company that has come to their senses.
Here's hoping the Beatles' catalogue is included, but even if not EMI have a lot of artists I look forward to enjoying. Any way you look at it, a red-letter day for consumers! ...And it might just save EMI from disaster
But the files are larger meaning:
It's quite justified for 30 cents.
- More bandwidth costs
- More storage costs
It's quite justified for 30 cents.This is true, good point.
Then buy the DRM'd music and strip the DRM yourself. Easy as pie.
DRM-Free Songs from EMI Available on iTunes for $1.29 in May
CUPERTINO, California—April 2, 2007
Apple® today announced that EMI Music’s entire digital catalog of music will be available for purchase DRM-free (without digital rights management) from the iTunes® Store (www.itunes.com) worldwide in May. DRM-free tracks from EMI will be offered at higher quality 256 kbps AAC encoding, resulting in audio quality indistinguishable from the original recording, for just $1.29 per song. In addition, iTunes customers will be able to easily upgrade their entire library of all previously purchased EMI content to the higher quality DRM-free versions for just 30 cents a song. iTunes will continue to offer its entire catalog, currently over five million songs, in the same versions as today—128 kbps AAC encoding with DRM—at the same price of 99 cents per song, alongside DRM-free higher quality versions when available.
“We are going to give iTunes customers a choice—the current versions of our songs for the same 99 cent price, or new DRM-free versions of the same songs with even higher audio quality and the security of interoperability for just 30 cents more,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We think our customers are going to love this, and we expect to offer more than half of the songs on iTunes in DRM-free versions by the end of this year.”
“EMI and iTunes are once again teaming up to move the digital music industry forward by giving music fans higher quality audio that is virtually indistinguishable from the original recordings, with no usage restrictions on the music they love from their favorite artists,” said Eric Nicoli, CEO of EMI Group.
With DRM-free music from the EMI catalog, iTunes customers will have the ability to download tracks from their favorite EMI artists without any usage restrictions that limit the types of devices or number of computers that purchased songs can be played on. DRM-free songs purchased from the iTunes Store will be encoded in AAC at 256 kbps, twice the current bit rate of 128 kbps, and will play on all iPods, Mac® or Windows computers, Apple TVs and soon iPhones, as well as many other digital music players.
iTunes will also offer customers a simple, one-click option to easily upgrade their entire library of all previously purchased EMI content to the higher quality DRM-free format for 30 cents a song. All EMI music videos will also be available in DRM-free format with no change in price.
The iTunes Store features the world’s largest catalog with over five million songs, 350 television shows and over 400 movies. The iTunes Store has sold over two billion songs, 50 million TV shows and over 1.3 million movies, making it the world’s most popular online music, TV and movie store.
With Apple’s legendary ease of use, pioneering features such as integrated podcasting support, iMix playlist sharing, seamless integration with iPod® and the ability to turn previously purchased songs into completed albums at a reduced price, the iTunes Store is the best way for PC and Mac users to legally discover, purchase and download music and video online.
Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital media revolution with its iPod portable music and video players and iTunes online store, and will enter the mobile phone market this year with its revolutionary iPhone.
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/04/02itunes.html
Last edited by Jugalator on 02 Apr 2007 - 15:52
It'll be a handy way to buy the odd single track, but at that price it's hardly an alternative to buying CDs.
With my X-Fi sound card and software, I can rip all my CDs into 700-1000 Kbps VBR DRM-free tracks and never have to chance damaging my CDs thereafter. I can also (at least for now) legally copy my CDs for use in my car CD player before putting them away. Again, no damage to my original CDs.
In my opinion, buying CDs is still the way to go if you want the entire CD; digital downloads are for when you only want single tracks.
With my X-Fi sound card and software, I can rip all my CDs into 700-1000 Kbps VBR DRM-free tracks and never have to chance damaging my CDs thereafter. I can also (at least for now) legally copy my CDs for use in my car CD player before putting them away. Again, no damage to my original CDs.
In my opinion, buying CDs is still the way to go if you want the entire CD; digital downloads are for when you only want single tracks.
+1. Exactly what I do.
With my X-Fi sound card and software, I can rip all my CDs into 700-1000 Kbps VBR DRM-free tracks and never have to chance damaging my CDs thereafter. I can also (at least for now) legally copy my CDs for use in my car CD player before putting them away. Again, no damage to my original CDs.
In my opinion, buying CDs is still the way to go if you want the entire CD; digital downloads are for when you only want single tracks.
+1. Exactly what I do.
+2 Same here
Absolutely, CDs FTW. Buy it, rip it and store it. The music industry and Apple are making digital downloads a priority over CDs (because they are cheaper to put out and distribute), but if they come at the same prices as CDs and even more expensive, buying a CD over a digital download should be a no-brainer.
Still doesn't affect some of us though!
This seems like a cautious first step in the right direction.
It doesn't cost more to remove DRM. I have over 1000 files I got from iTunes and ran them through a DRM stripper. It took about a minute. I'm sure they could do the same thing.
COLDPLAY!(oh damn, teh internets.)Air and Daft Punk, wow! For the first time as a non-iTunes country guy, I'm rather attracted to get tons of giftcards and start gobbling.
now we only need all the other guys like Sony BMG to follow...
and the smaller labels... mmh... this is actually good news...
Glassed Silver:mac
Last edited by icec on 02 Apr 2007 - 14:46
Or at least add an imports section or something.
Thanks EMI!
Anyway great to see it, hope it lasts and spreads to other labels!
Anyway great to see it, hope it lasts and spreads to other labels!
I don't think they will see an increase in piracy from this. If anything, it should decrease.
Buy DRM free to not only support artists but enjoy playing it on your computer, ipod, zune, phone, etc! I'll be interested to see the sales report after a month of this system in place.
Feel free to call me a troll for this, but I'm not entirely surprised Apple are one of the first to be trying it...
This is great news and marks an important milestone. Finally - legal music has matched the benefits of pirated MP3s.
In my perfect world, what I'd like is a DRM-free subscription service. That would be fair and something I would seriously consider using.
PDAs
PlayStation 3
PlayStation Portable
Cellphones
Car stereos (Pioneer, Sony, Alpine, Kenwood, Clarion and Panasonic)
Last edited by Galley on 02 Apr 2007 - 18:26
Loads of players support unprotected AAC. The iPod is the only player that can play protected AAC.
And maybe Samsung (only the Rhapsody Sansa does currently), Creative, Toshiba, et al. will finally jump into the 21st Century and support a codec they should have supported 5 years ago.
A list of other devices:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Audi...hat_support_AAC
Last edited by dp123 on 02 Apr 2007 - 17:01
And, fine with the artwork, but you would be making this purchase to specifically avoid the CD/case. Claiming you get the "case" is the stupidest argument I've ever heard.
Your pricing is based on new "hot" releases. Based on a quick sample, I would say the average price for a CD at Best Buy and Circuit City is around $14.05. Assuming 11 songs and your are paying about the same. Look for obscure stuff and you can pay as high as $17 for a CD, which means itunes will be a better deal.
Also, many artists that are not "mainstream" are not carried by your large retailers (or AllofMp3 for what it is worth). They are in iTunes, though. I hope those go DRM free soon.
Now I may consider buying music since I can load it on anything I want.
[You may want to read the comments (at least skim them) before posting. This was already discussed in #30.]
I think the legions of LAME fans out there would beg to differ. MP3s sound great to me when ripped properly.
agreed.
agreed
Why are people so happy about this? Why should there be a price increase? Becouse the songs are bigger? You really think that justifies a 30 cent pay hike? Itunes boasts how many millions of subscribers? Multiply that by 30 cents. You going to tell me that whatever that amount is, it's not enough to cover costs of larger storage for them?
I agree that the lower quality songs should also be DRM free. Why aren't they? It makes no sence....unless you can coax the gullible users that they want the non drm version.
I mean. seriously, who on this forum hasn't stripped the security off of these music files? Is it really that difficult and time consuming?
and now all of a sudden 128kb/s isn't good enough? hmmmph. I'd say Jobs and EMI have you exactly where they want you. Thinking their the greatest, most nicest people in the whole gosh durn world while jacking your wallet even more. For a service quite frankly, should have been DRM free to begin with.
You guys give up way too easy.
The cost isn't storage, it's transmission. Increasing file size 100% with a 30% price increase on a product that nets Apple 5 cents of revenue and almost zero profit seems about right. Yes.
What is it that you've done to make digital music a viable commercial operation that is fair to consumers? So far, Apple has done more and done right as far as I can tell. If you want to live in a Black and White world and sit on the sideline for 20 years, have fun. The rest of us are participating in the market, aware that compromise and transitions are necessary.
Last edited by dp123 on 02 Apr 2007 - 22:53
It's also awfully nice of Apple and EMI to offer the un-DRM'ed music at $0.30 more per track and justify it by saying it's to compensate for the higher quality encoding. They're truly just compensating for the projected loss they believe un-DRM'ed music will bring.
Lame.
Yes, I did. Out of the portable devices that support the AAC format, only four are truly DAPs (digital audio players). The iPod, Zune, Sansa e200R, and Sony Walkman S. That's some freedom.
Keep in mind that is not the fault of the format, or Apple, or EMI. It was a choice by music player makers not to support an open format when they already have to support mp3.
First people complained about having DRM in their music. They wanted it removed. The companies did not want to remove it. But now finally after all these years, they remove it, but now force you to pay more for it and on top of that for far less quality then a CD. And it appears most of you are HAPPY with this move. I'm sorry but I still would rather buy the CD then pay for this garbage.
and now all of a sudden 128kb/s isn't good enough? hmmmph. I'd say Jobs and EMI have you exactly where they want you. Thinking their the greatest, most nicest people in the whole gosh durn world while jacking your wallet even more. For a service quite frankly, should have been DRM free to begin with.
Exactly.
Either you are working for a contracted company by Apple or EMI to spread information on how great this move is, or you are a consumer who doesn't give a **** about the quality, price, and how this move is actually screwing you in the ass. Look at what this move has done; most of the people in this thread would scream bloody murder if their music had DRM in it, but now they are praising these companies for upping the price on the very same music without DRM, and trying to justify it with a very small increase in quality. It's a corporate marketing strangle-hold now.
I have no more to say I cannot believe most of you are buying into this.
Epimetheus:
256kbps AAC is lossless