“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.
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