“Music company EMI Group PLC – home of The Rolling Stones and Coldplay [and the world’s largest independent music company] – has been talking with online retailers about possibly selling its entire digital music catalog in MP3 format without copy protection, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday, citing numerous people familiar with the matter,” The Associated Press reports.
AP reports, “The MP3 format, which can be freely copied and played on virtually any device, would allow consumers to play music purchased from any online store on any digital music device.”
MacDailyNews Take: Translating for the AP, a routine job around here, replace “MP3” with “AAC” or any other unprotected file format. Obviously, we would hope that Apple wouldn’t be forced to go backwards to MP3, when AAC is the superior format. More about AAC Audio here.
AP continues, “According to the people familiar with the matter, London-based EMI asked the retailers to submit proposals by Thursday telling the company what size advance payments they would offer in exchange for the right to sell EMI’s music as MP3s, the Journal reported. One of the unidentified people said EMI would decide whether to forge ahead with the strategy based on the size of the offers. A decision about whether to keep pursuing the idea could come as soon as Friday.”
“Earlier this week, Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs called on record labels to abandon their requirement for online music to use DRM, which is designed to limit unauthorized copying. Jobs said such restrictions have done little to slow music piracy and eliminating them would open up the online music marketplace,” AP reports.
Full article here.
Jobs should submit a proposal that ensures EMI will crack open the floodgates on DRM-free music.
Related articles:
Norway responds to Apple CEO Jobs’ call for DRM-free music – February 09, 2007
Recording Industry Association of America wants their DRM, calls for Apple to license FairPlay – February 08, 2007
Warner’s Middlebronfman: Jobs’ DRM-free music call ‘without logic and merit, we’ll not abandon DRM’ – February 08, 2007
Dvorak: Apple CEO Steve Jobs is dead right about DRM – February 07, 2007
Apple’s Jobs jolts music industry; Zune exec calls Jobs’ call for DRM-free music ‘irresponsible’ – February 07, 2007
Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ posts rare open letter: ‘Thoughts on Music’ – calls for DRM-free music – February 06, 2007
Apple Inc. and The Beatles’ Apple Corps Ltd. enter into new agreement – February 05, 2007
Norwegian Ombudsman: Apple’s FairPlay DRM is illegal in Norway – January 24, 2007
Major music labels ponder DRM-free future – January 23, 2007
Clash, Pink Floyd manager: ‘DRM is dead’ – November 06, 2006
Study reports the obvious: most music on iPods not from iTunes Store – September 17, 2006
Could EMI’s decision have been influenced by Steve’s open letter?
Hey 1st post. Aren’t I….cool?
MDN, don’t make that assumption that EMI won’t care what format the music is in. mp3 is an inferior format to AAC, Apple Lossless, AIFF, and so on, and that may be exactly what they want. They may be saying “you can buy a high-quality CD from us, or a low-quality digital download” in an effort to keep people buying CDs instead of downloading the songs (since they have a firm control of CD sales, but not of digital music).
Of course, it would be great if they didn’t care about the format…but I’m betting they do.
can this seriously be happening..?
This would be way too good to be true…I simply dont believe it..nope.
It’s not about the online music stores, it’s about the players. yes there is potential for online sales, but selling the player is a lot more profitable. Apple makes it’s money from the iPod, not iTunes so much. That being the case, the source of the music download doesn’t matter so much, which is why the iPod plays any mp3 (that isn’t DRM’d by someone), not just songs and video from iTunes Store.
iTune/Apple TV has however given Apple an entrance into people’s living rooms and that’s it’s importance now. Movies, TV, streaming audio in your house – that is the future of iTunes.
Apple TV in your house, iPod in your car and on the go.
Simple, and that’s why Apple TV is the hot seller on Apple’s website. Watch out for it, it’s going to sneak up on people just like iPod did.
…in iTunes 8, go to the Advanced menu, and pull down to Remove Fairplay From Selection…
Hey, I can dream.
-c
Hairbo’s got a good point.
P.S. Apple always says it’s a hardware company.
“Of course, it would be great if they didn’t care about the format…but I’m betting they do.”
But if I’m free to transcode it then Apple is, too. You can’t just decree what format you ‘open’ files are going to be available in.
Hairbo, I think your right on the quality issue and that’s at the trade off for convenience of an online purchase compared to better quality contained on a CD.
I will be shocked if they go through with this.
“YOUR open files”. Sheesh. Never could get the hang of Fridays.
-c
Come on EMI…you can do it.
Just a little bit further…
Sheesh – Why didn’t the MPEG just call the codec MP4 instead of AAC, then people would understand that AAC is the next generation. For some reason, the world at large has equated AAC and FairPlay, as though AAC is propreitary Apple codec (or PlayStation3).
Buster: I think it’s safe to assume there is a public relations scramble-fest going on at all of the major labels’ HQs.
And yes, you are cool.
Apart from the four major labels, the iTunes catalog has nearly 1 million songs from small labels and indie artists that don’t force them to use DRM. Why doesn’t Apple begin by removing DRM on those songs?
Apart from the four major labels, the iTunes catalog has nearly 1 million songs from small labels and indie artists that don’t force them to use DRM. Why doesn’t Apple begin by removing DRM on those songs?
Apart from the four major labels, the iTunes catalog has nearly 1 million songs from small labels and indie artists that don’t force them to use DRM. Why doesn’t Apple begin by removing DRM on those songs?
Come on, Steve –
As I said over at The Macalope:
As for the idea of selling non-DRM’d music from independent labels while continuing to sell FairPlay-encoded content from the majors: Reportedly, Apple was able to keep prices at 99¢ after the recent contract renewals with the Big 4 music labels by demonstrating the success of the absolute standardization of product on the iTunes Store. (Meanwhile, on the PlaysForSure side, differing prices and levels of DRM rights from song to song have not been good for Napster’s and Rhapsody’s bottom lines.) “One size fits all” (at least for music) is a core concept of the iTunes Store. Selling a mixture of DRMed and non-DRMed music would break that. Once that happens, the major labels suddenly get leverage they hadn’t had before: “Well, since your audience doesn’t seem to mind having two different types of use privileges, we’ve got some ideas about pricing that we’d like to discuss.”
All of the music from the iTS comes without DRM, it’s iTunes that puts it on after it is downloaded. I’m guessing it’s just easier for iTunes to put DRM on all purchased songs instead of just certain songs, although I do think this could be fairly easily fixed. In any case, I would love it if Apple were to sell drm-free songs from EMI, but I’m kind of doubtful that it will happen anytime soon, or ever.
Great. i will still buy CD no matter what.
Quality Quality Quality
The DRM on my Zune for WiFi sharing is far too liberal for my taste. I proposed to Ballmer and Gates that “squirted” songs only be available for 5 minutes after squirt reception, or 15 seconds of playing time, for 1 instance of playing, whichever comes first. When I get the e-mail back I’m gonna print it and frame it, no matter what it says.
Anyway, I’m just not comfortable with non-DRM’ed music. The geniuses at Microsoft are working in close concert with the generous and kind music labels to deliver a first rate experience. The points are awesome—that’s a big step in the right direction. They just need to tighten this DRM thing down a little more. Ballmer is so right when he says “DRM is the future.”
When Apple gets their head out of their ass and starts putting the customer first like Microsoft and the record labels intend to, they might have something. Until then, I’m gonna enjoy watching the Zune rocket past iPod in market share sometime this spring.
Welcome to the Social.
hairbo’s onto something.
Given a choice of current lo-fi quality files and a CD?
I’ll stick with the CD.
Besides, I can always rip it myself at whatever resolution//sampling rate I want later on. When given the choice, I always buy SACD disks rather than a standard CD.
Does the sampling rate make any difference to most people? They can’t tell the difference between good and bad sound quality, because they’re not EXPOSED to how instruments and voices actually sound.
If you go to your typical popular (in the broadest sense) music concert, you’re NOT listening to the actual instruments moving air, you’re listening to a stereo system, a big PA system really. Loud, but not very accurate. Spend time in real concert halls listening to non-amplified music and you’ll never settle for lo-res recordings for more than a taste.
Other news sites say that EMI is suggesting this as a means to compete with Apple. Apparently they don’t intend to allow Apple the same rights. How they’ll pull that off will be an interesting thing to watch…
Has Apple just missed its opportunity to license Fairplay?
Don’t stop. Go all the way.