EMI music on iTunes -- now DRM free and higher quality
By Thomas Ricker 
posted Apr 2nd 2007 8:23AM
posted Apr 2nd 2007 8:23AM
It's been rumored for weeks and now, just as the Wall Street Journal predicted, EMI music is DRM-free. True to his word, Steve Jobs has "embraced it in a heartbeat" making it available for download from Apple's iTunes store, first, starting in May. It's taken so so long but now even (one of) the Big Four realizes that DRM fails to prevent piracy -- succeeding only at being an unnecessary nuisance for the vast majority of law abiding consumers. Bravo EMI, bravo. Now it's your turn to vote with your dollars. We'll see just how long the remaining majors can claim that removing DRM is "completely without logic or merit."Update: And now for the specifics: iTunes customers will have the choice of 256kbps, non-DRM'ed tracks for $1.29 per, or the same songs in regular 128kbps AAC locked up all nice and tight with FairPlay for the usual 99 cents. What's more, any EMI tunes you've ever downloaded from the store can be upgraded to the new, higher-quality versions for just 30 cents apiece.
About time, but the price increase is cheekie. As far as I remember CD quality preceeded those lower quality MP3s, so why do I have to pay MORE for still less (or equal) quality. People you are still getting ripped off!
Let's hope that they also unlock the iPods as I still can't transfer my owned music from my big iPod to my iShuffle!!!!! (why oh why? I want my CD walkman back)
Why do we have to pay ever more for ever less service? Think you could play your music in higher quality on any player you owned since the 80s, now you pay more for less quality and where you play it is restricted.
No wonder da Piratebay moved to North Korea, they saw a bright future :)
And you pay more for it (1.29€ / 1.29€).... which is bulls..t.
It may be BS to pay more for no DRM... but you're get 256kbps bit rate with that extra 30 cents. I know there are a lot of people who have always complained that even with DRM, the bitrates for protected tracks are terrible. So this is also part of that premium price.
Guess I'll have to figure out who's on EMI that I might actually listen to (or already do)...
Here's a list of signed artists:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_musicians_signed_to_EMI
"And you pay more for it (1.29€ / 1.29€).... which is bulls..t."
What's that? "bulls..t"? If you want to write bullshit, write *bullshit*!
Anyway... It's USD 0.30 / € 0.30 extra only if you buy *a single track*.
Full albums are all 256kbps, DRM-free at NO EXTRA COST (unless you had already bough them, in which case they'll charge you an extra 0.30 per track to re-download the 256kbps version)
the only reason for me to buy via iTMS is that is much more easier than those p2p alternatives. At least, the tunes are well sorted with good album arts, although they r off low-quality. Now Steve & Co is just giving this advantage away... brilliant.
People don't pirate because of the legitmate version is too difficult to use. They just don't want to pay.
the question I ask is: When will indie labels be allowed to follow suit and offer DRM free tracks? My guess is that A LOT of artists would want DRM free tracks at the 128kb/99c price point. Will apple facilitate this?
Stupid question, but what is EMI music??
EMI are a record label who release Albums and Singles for Artists, they're one of the Major players in the Music Industry.
If you look through your CD collection you'll see at least one EMI logo on the back of the Jewel case.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_musicians_signed_to_EMI
OK, so let me make sure I have this right. Since the music is no longer DRM, does that mean I can download from Itunes and burn the music to a cd?
that's already possible
WELL DONE APPLE & EMI!
Someone needs to show morons from Sony, Vivendi and others that they are wrong and majority of people wre honest customers.
Engadget guys, please organise a poll to see who will do what (Upgrade to DRM free, continue buying DRM, contiunue P2P, etc)
that's 256bits AAC, which is excellent.
Finally! Please take my $$! I've bought less than 10 songs and no CD's since about 2001 because of DRM (pirated a grand total of 5 songs, so I'm only a little morally corrupt). All I want is the ability to play music on all my DAPs. EMI is going to make a ton of cash from honest people who've been waiting for the CD to die (along with paying $15 for 3 songs you like), and won't purchase songs twice for multiple DAPs. They'll also make a ton of money from people who find it easier to be honest and pay than go through the trouble to pirate music.
Good job.
At least we can chose.
I will put my money on EMI.
Finally, some real progress!
MacRumors predicted that this would be a DRM-related event before the Wall Street Journal
http://www.macrumors.com/2007/04/01/steve-jobs-and-emi-press-conference-no-more-drm/
Seems that EMI has quite a repertoire of classical artists--seems that's an audience that the higher bitrate would appeal to.
Didn't Apple introduce its own form of lossless encoding (ALAC, similar to FLAC) for those who are interested in quality? I would pay extra for lossless audio, but not for the "privilege" of getting DRM-free music. Would anyone else pay extra for lossless audio?
Just buy the CD then.
Absolutely. I think there should be two options, anyway:
1. AAC 256kb - 0.99$
2. Lossless - 0.99$ + small premium charge
Absolutely. I think there should be two options, anyway:
1. AAC 256kb - 0.99$
2. Lossless - 0.99$ + small premium charge
Sweet, DRM free Garth Brooks! Yeehaw!
I'd pay 1.50 for drm free flac. How long till they start offering lossless?
So will the iTunes store have a special DRM-free designated section or an EMI section so that you'll know you're buying DRM-free music or not?
I'm currently able to download music off of itunes and then burn it to a cd??? how the hell do I do this?? And if I am able to do this, what will this DRM free music do that it couldn't do before?? Boy am I a novice when it comes to this stuff.
You simply create a playlist of your desired songs (including songs bought from iTunes), select the playlist, and click Burn Disc in the lower right hand corner.
iTunes' DRM has always allowed this. If a friend sends you a song HE bought from iTunes, you cannot burn that unless you have his password. But you can burn any song YOU bought.
this is how people have been circumventing the DRM to begin with. Burn CD, Import back in itunes, no DRM!
Why can you only get DRM free music on the higher quality music which costs more money and takes up more space? this is just another way of squeezing more money out of consumers
A great move from EMI and Apple. It seems Jobs wasn't just blowing hot air when he publicly criticised DRM, more likely he was trying to prove a point and close a deal.
It will be interesting to see (although I doubt we will) what the deal is that Apple have made as EMI were previously talking up up-front payments for DRM-free music.
The key is though that Apple see this as a good thing for their business (publicity, advertising revenue, power over the gateway, hardware sales) and they are bringing others round to their view. Which hopefully will continue to be a good thing for the consumer.
http://gamenian.blogspot.com/2007/04/apple-emi-embrace-drm-free-music.html
http://gamenian.blogspot.com/2007/02/apple-vs-drm-part-2.html
This won't really do much for interoperability - how many non-Apple portable music players support AAC, even without DRM?
Anyway, it's nice to see they're going to offer an "upgrade" option where you can get the 256kbps files by paying the $0.30/track difference. Wonder how many of their artists' albums I have, and how many of those they'll offer this for...
PDAs
Cellphones
Nearly all major brands of car stereos.
Not "a lot" but a few... even the Zune...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Audio_Coding#Products_that_support_AAC
Also, without DRM, you could easily reecode into mp3 or whatever of your choice.
EMI - The Sex Pistols
"There's unlimited supply
And there is no reason why
I tell you it was all a frame
They only did it 'cos of fame
Who?
E.M.I. E.M.I. E.M.I."
So I guess EMI are the goodies now. Does that mean hell froze over and global warming is solved now?
All in all, a great day for music! Finally the industry begins to understand their market, their customers and their business.
Yaay, my Sansa Rhapsody player supports non-DRM AAC files.
Of course, the Rhapsody player also offers the best music subscription support of any player in America. So my player is pretty jam packed full of Rhapsody channels and music already. Still, Apple has a few bands the other services lack (and vice versa).
Hey, the Helio Ocean phone I'm planning on getting supports AAC too!
Not trying to sound smarmy, but what about QTFairUse? Doesn't this program legally remove (for personal use) the DRM restrictions? So I've heard...
In any case, I do appreciate the higher bitrate. I really think anyone that listens to music seriously can tell a night/day difference between 128/256.
I'm still holding out for the day when DRM is just gone... gone. I can picture the trouble that people who can't burn a CD from iTunes are going to have trying to figure out which of their tracks are DRM'd, etc...
The Mute back catalog as DRM-free digital downloads? I'm all over that.
This is great news for consumers, music and movie fans, and for the future of digital content. HungryFlix.com has been offering movie downloads with no DRM for years now and we really belive that DRM is not a solution. It is rewarding to now see the major studios and Apple agreeing with us. The price increases in unfortunate and some will complain that instead of moving toward supporting consumer rights these guys are just making a new buck. But this is a start people.
DRM-FREE KENNY ROGERS, HERE I COME!
So when will we be able to have an AAC converter within Itunes so we can use non apple product with our Itunes libraries? Some of us own other devices (Oakley thump, etc) and want to be able to easily use.
Do you people look at the menus? This is already available. You can convert songs into MANY formats in iTunes as long as they are DRM free and now they are. I don't understand what the bitching is about. This is a WIN for the consumer.
J
I have visited the local apple store and all they could tell me was to download a 3rd party software to accomplish my goal. So if you are an apple employee than you have some internal training to do.
This is brilliant news. Virtually every phone capable of playing MP3s can also play AAC and anyone can license it if they want to add it to their product.
YOU CAN BURN CDS FROM ANY ITUNES SONG EVEN IF ITS DRMD.
jeez i had no idea so many ppl didn't know that. on engadget, no less! it is and was always possible to burn an audio CD from iTunes then re-import it as mp3 with no DRM. the only drawback was that you were converting 128 bit AAC, e.g. not so hot quality.
anyway - finally! iTunes store suddenly looks a lot more interesting. finally 256 bit, too!
blind tests with high-end audio equipment have shown that even professional musicians can't tell 256 bit encoded mp3s from lossless. if pro musicians with equipment worth 100s of thousands of dollars can't tell the difference, it's good enough for me. btw the same test also showed that everyone could sort out 128 bit encoded material. and AAC is generally better than mp3.
But iT[M]S never sold MP3s. AAC is way better in terms of sound quality. In my experience, 128bps AAC is better than 192bps MP3.
Yeah, I will buy a few bits from EMI on this news. I don't want to go overboard though as EMI hasn't dropped DRM on everything yet. I'm still not sure if I want the RIAA to survive at all. The hurt the RIAA has caused is just too deep at this point I think? I don't see the reason for the RIAA to exist anymore. I'd rather see all the bands go Independent.
Jono- eMusic has already been offering many indie tracks DRM-free. I'm not huge into indie, so I can't tell you what kind of selection they have. Check em out.
Do the absence of DRM and the little bit higher quality justify the 30 extra cents? I don't think so ... it cost them nothing or almost ! Overpriced.
The additional cost applies only to individual tracks. Full albums are still the same price.
@Flying? So any retailer that prices their product above what it costs them to get it into the shop is overpricing their stuff? Is no-one allowed to make a profit then?
I'm not speaking about what they can or can't do. of course they can sell at the price they want. I'm not even speaking about downloading illegal stuff until they propose appropriate prices (in my opinion).
All I'm saying is that they have to consider the comparison between the two products and the regular market (CD), because the consumer will certainly do so. On one hand you got a DRMed low-quality song, on the other and a DRM-free medium quality song 30% more expensive. Sure you get advantages from the more expensive alternative.
But. I personnally am not ready to pay more for something that I could get with the cheaper version, knowing that it will cost absolutely nothing more to the retailers ... I can pay more for an extended version of a movie, a software, because it takes more R&D, more work, etc. but paying for something LESS? nope. All they do is create a relative advantage of the "high-end product" by restricting artificially the "low-end" product ...
However I did not read entirely the news about EMI: they seem to price @ 10$/€ the whole album for the both DRMed and DRM-free versions. That seems cool as long as you only buy complete CDs. Occasional listener who only wants one song or two will have to pay more ...
Firstly your comparison with CDs is only valid for complete albums anyway since CD singles cost more than the digital versions.
So its a 256 kbps Product availble at any time of the day or night and without having to drive into town vs a higher quality physical product but one constrained by the limitations of being physical, so it can onyl be sold from a shop with opening hours in a shopping centre. Bear in mind some shops won't stock all CDs all the time etc
Another factor is that most people cannot tell the difference between 256 kbps and CD quality audio, blind tests with professional audio equipment confirm this and that driving into town means you have to pay for a parking ticket, take time out of your day etc
So it's really a relatively marginal increase in quality against a pretty big increase in conveniance for around the same cost (for new CDs) and more for old CDs (itunes is always in stock though).
It'll really come down to personal preferance and depend on the individual but the products are a lot more comparable than you seem to imply.
To hear the actual press conference:
http://w3.cantos.com/07/pjxrobbi-703-5zvx0/interviews.php?task=view
it's all a bit gay, i'd prefer to choose the bitrate, esp. for my 8gb nano, half as many tracks on it doesn't sound too good
There is one question that no-one (even the traditional news outlets) seems to have asked yet: Will the DRM free tracks be watermarked with your name/account details and the fact that they were purchased online through the iTunes store?
If EMI and Apple want to monitor how many of these DRM free tracks make it onto the file sharing networks, then watermarking will have to be used. If it is, could we see people getting banned from the iTunes store if a track they purchased ends up on BitTorrent? Will they use this watermark information to bring a copyright infringement prosecution?
Can they do that without making the file unreadable to regular MP3 player?
Obviously they'll never ban someone from the iTunes store: why stoping someone from buying something? it certainly won't stop the illegal sharing of the files ...
Flying> I believe so. The process is probably similar to that used by Digimarc to protect JPEG images:
http://www.digimarc.com/tech/dwm.asp
bleh. my comment above was written a few hours before it showed up. Nevermind it now. ;)
I would still rather buy my own CD's and rip them to 320kbps, OGG Vorbius Q10, or FLAC. Or, there is always the pink palace...
Seriously, up the bitrate, or forget it.
Love iTunes, hate digital right management. I now only buy iTunes PLus songs and life is good.