EMI Group CEO Eric Nicoli today hosted a press conference at EMI’s headquarters in London where he announced that EMI Music is launching DRM-free superior quality downloads across its entire digital repertoire and that Apple’s iTunes Store will be the first online music store to sell EMI’s new downloads. Nicoli was joined by Apple CEO Steve Jobs. The event also featured a musical performance by The Good, The Bad & The Queen.
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.
The new higher quality DRM-free music will complement EMI’s existing range of standard DRM-protected downloads already available. From today, EMI’s retailers will be offered downloads of tracks and albums in the DRM-free audio format of their choice in a variety of bit rates up to CD quality. EMI is releasing the premium downloads in response to consumer demand for high fidelity digital music for use on home music systems, mobile phones and digital music players. EMI’s new DRM-free products will enable full interoperability of digital music across all devices and platforms.
Eric Nicoli, CEO of EMI Group, said in the press release, “Our goal is to give consumers the best possible digital music experience. 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. Apple have been a true pioneer in digital music, and we are delighted that they share our vision of an interoperable market that provides consumers with greater choice, quality, convenience and value for money.”
“Selling digital music DRM-free is the right step forward for the music industry,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO, in the press release. “EMI has been a great partner for iTunes and is once again leading the industry as the first major music company to offer its entire digital catalogue DRM-free.”
Apple’s iTunes Store is the first online music store to receive EMI’s new premium downloads. Apple has announced that iTunes will make individual AAC format tracks available from EMI artists at twice the sound quality of existing downloads, with their DRM removed, at a price of $1.29/€1.29/£0.99. iTunes will continue to offer consumers the ability to pay $0.99/€0.99/£0.79 for standard sound quality tracks with DRM still applied. Complete albums from EMI Music artists purchased on the iTunes Store will automatically be sold at the higher sound quality and DRM-free, with no change in the price. Consumers who have already purchased standard tracks or albums with DRM will be able to upgrade their digital music for $0.30/€0.30/£0.20 per track. All EMI music videos will also be available on the iTunes Store DRM-free with no change in price.
EMI is introducing a new wholesale price for premium single track downloads, while maintaining the existing wholesale price for complete albums. EMI expects that consumers will be able to purchase higher quality DRM-free downloads from a variety of digital music stores within the coming weeks, with each retailer choosing whether to sell downloads in AAC, WMA, MP3 or other unprotected formats of their choice. Music fans will be able to purchase higher quality DRM-free digital music for personal use, and listen to it on a wide range of digital music players and music-enabled phones.
EMI’s move follows a series of experiments it conducted recently. Norah Jones’s “Thinking About You”, Relient K’s “Must’ve Done Something Right”, and Lily Allen’s “Littlest Things” were all made available for sale in the MP3 format in trials held at the end of last year.
EMI Music will continue to employ DRM as appropriate to enable innovative digital models such as subscription services (where users pay a monthly fee for unlimited access to music), super-distribution (allowing fans to share music with their friends) and time-limited downloads (such as those offered by ad-supported services).
Nicoli added: “Protecting the intellectual property of EMI and our artists is as important as ever, and we will continue to work to fight piracy in all its forms and to educate consumers. We believe that fans will be excited by the flexibility that DRM-free formats provide, and will see this as an incentive to purchase more of our artists’ music.”
MacDailyNews Take: The pressure on the other major labels to follow EMI’s lead will be impossible to ignore. Middlebronfman’s head just popped off like a dandelion. Hopefully, the fire department has already been dispatched to catch Macrovision executives as they leap from the ledges.
Related article:
Apple: Higher quality 256 kbps AAC DRM-free music on iTunes Store coming in May – April 02, 2007
EMI rejects Warner Music buyout bid – March 04, 2007
EMI halts talks about selling DRM-free music – February 26, 2007
Warner Music approaches EMI in possible takeover bid – February 20, 2007
Macrovision posts pro-DRM open letter to Steve Jobs and digital entertainment industry – February 16, 2007
Warner’s DRM-loving Middlebronfman warns wireless industry it may lose music market to Apple iPhone – February 14, 2007
Monster Cable announces full support of Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ call for DRM-free music – February 13, 2007
BBC columnist doesn’t believe Steve Jobs’ Apple would stop using DRM if music labels would allow it – February 12, 2007
EMI may sell entire music catalog DRM-free – 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
Apple’s Jobs jolts music industry; Zune exec calls Jobs’ call for DRM-free music ‘irresponsible’ – February 07, 2007
Technology Review editor gets a lot wrong in his article about Apple CEO Jobs’ push to end DRM – February 07, 2007
Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ posts rare open letter: ‘Thoughts on Music’ – calls for DRM-free music – February 06, 2007
Listening to this stuff, it’s amazing that people…well, journalists don’t get that the driving factor behind the success of the iTunes Jukebox and the iPod is the quality of the product and the accompanying software rather than some mythical umbilical link between iPod and iTS.
I’ve been telling you guys this would probably happen.
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Then again I did have some inside info on the subject…
What remains to be seen now is how fast the other big three will follow suit.
I’ll predict that Universal will be next (although my intel on them is over a year out of date now).
The biggest point is that this is ONLY the complete EMI DIGITAL catalogue…
this is an action to increase the income of EMI and a first step.
I see a chink in the armor of DMI but I don’t see it happening fast as SJ & EMi hopes.
Good first step – I would pay the difference for better quality music in a heartbeat and to be able to update all of my music (eventually for the difference woudl be OK with me)
I figure those who don’t want to pay the diff are htos e who are also still living at home and have ot ask for their allowance each week.
Cheers…
this is a good start. I’d like to see them go premium pricing for Apple Lossless and DRM-free across the board. 256 AAC sounds very very good.
Unless you are listening to extremely minimalist music (Pärt, Gorecki, O’Hallaran … for example) on very good speakers or headphones, i doubt you can tell the difference between 256 AAC and lossless. AAC is not MP3 — It sounds way better.
this is progress in an area that has been dominated by dinosaurs. Good job Steve Jobs, and good job EMI for stepping up.
So, all you loser out there who challenged me to put my money where my mouth is. Here ya go! Hope you don’t choke on the feathers are you eat your well-deserved crow!
Bozos
S.
As yucky as it is in principle, I’ve never had any practical problems with DRM, and I don’t expect to have any without.
The higher quality is great, but the higher price makes me cringe a bit; it’s not unreasonable, but it does mess up the simplicity of iTunes’ single-price scheme.
I am all for higher quality music. I usually rip cds in apple lossless. I also really dig DVD-A and SACD, but those formats are effectively dead for now.
I was referring to people who call lossy compressed music “cd-quality” self righteous bastards. I hope this clears that up.
Having listened to the whole webcast, Jobs is incredibly fantastic at answering questions, at keeping on topic, at repeating over and over the key points, which are:
1. This is a new product that I believe people want and are willing to pay a premium for, so we will give them a choice.
2. I will continue to offer the same product for people who are price-sensitive and don’t have any issues for Fairplay DRM or today’s quality. (There is no price increase for today’s product.)
3. I will not speak poorly of anyone (any music label), rather I will encourage them to see the new and better way.
Nicoli of EMI sounds like a pretty good guy, too; he has a good sense of humor. And he revealed that this has been Steve’s position for a long, long time. In other words, Jobs absolutely refused to move on song price until the labels agreed to these two things – no DRM and higher quality. And even then, he managed to keep album prices exactly the same – probably convinced EMI that this would sell more albums instead of singles.
Hey, just to prep you guys: Jobs kept saying that 128K AAC was the best of any store – which means he saying it’s better than 192K WMA (that I think is offered somewhere). I forecast many will be arguing this.
I’ll admit I’ve pirated a track or thirty… but that pales in comparison to my legit purchases (roughly 1000 CDs).
EMI… I will definitely purchase your non-DRM’d iTMS tracks rather than download for free.
I take that back… I’ll probably stick to CDs on the really good stuff though – namely your Blue Note label.
Thanks! This is great news!
Considering that so many people have been happy to pay the current price with DRM I don’t think many people will complain about paying just a bit more for twice the quality. I’m sure many who are happy with the current situation will still opt to save a few pennies and continue to buy the 128K DRM versions which will still be available. Yes the price increase for higher quality is disappointing but you could argue that it’s still better value than the lower quality 128K files. I’d rather have seen them drop the price of 128K tracks and bring in the 256K ones at no more than current prices.
It’s good that albums will DRM free and higher quality with no price increase so together with the recent ‘Complete My Album’ announcement albums are now a more attractive and practical option than they were. One thing I really want to see happen with albums is flexible pricing because it’s ridiculous that so many older albums cost significantly more to download than they do when bought as CDs. Even new ablums can cost about the same or sometimes even more than a CD. Ablum downloads need to be around half their current price to make them popular.
As for the idea of Apple Lossless being used, that’s just not going to happen for quite some time because of the file sizes involved and the fact that most people don’t listen on high end equipment and so wouldn’t really benefit. It’s a bit like Apple Movie downloads not being full HD quality like some people think they should be. It’s just not practical given current technology. 256K is a significant improvement over 128K whilst the file sizes are still practical for the masses. The right balance has been struck for now but I can imagine that in the future Lossless files be offered as an additional option.
I notice that music videos are going to be DRM free too which is good news.
It was Apple that made legal music downloads popular and now they’re playing a part making in making the whole thing fairer to consumers so well done Apple and EMI. I suspect the movie industry is watching this but will be very very reluctant to follow suit and will probably take years to see the light, if they ever do.
God, I hate the RIAA! I hope someone locks them up in a Turkish prison.
The biggest point is that this is ONLY the complete EMI DIGITAL catalogue…
ahh all the music on the iTunes store is in a digital format.
i havnt got any LPs on the post from Apple recently.
“The floodgates are opening slowly…
Sydney, Australia”
Getting hit with that tsunami there today, eh Mike?
Interesting announcement. However, since Apple’s current DRM does not bother me AND my ears (or my audio equipment) can’t distinguish between 128k AAC and “lossless,” I’m going to keep buying the 99-cent version for now. The exception will be if decide to buy the album and it’s available DRM-free at the higher quality. Later on, when more companies are onboard with DRM-free, I might pay the extra 30 cents per track and “upgrade.” But by that time, the price may be back down to 99 cents for DRM-free and higher quality (if that becomes the norm).
It will be interesting to hear what the “anti competitive” European crowd says now…
Those quotes you have iCal’ed MDN are fantastic – every single one was bagging Jobs when he released the letter – now they will be begging him to part of the future…and for it happen in a few short months makes it even more entertaining!
MW Speak – as in Middlebronfman is lost for words – can’t speak!
Some people will have to eat their words now.
I remember reading an article by the BBC’s Bill Thompson titled “Why I don’t believe Steve Jobs” and I thought it was ridiculous at the time.
Check it out: BBC columnist doesn’t believe Steve Jobs’ Apple would stop using DRM if music labels would allow it
This will get me to actually buy music from ITMS. What a deal. If all the music on ITMS was like this, I’d never set foot in Best Buy of Circuit City ever again to buy music.
Well I’ll be dammed.
Now people will expect other music players to work with iTunes.
*jaw still on the ground…*
Jobs is my hero!
Here’s what I think will happen:
1. Another major label will come on board before the year’s end. I predict Sony/BMG (process of elimination; Universal is currently in bed with MS, and we all know how Warner feels about non-DRM tracks)
2. iPod / iTunes has such a huge mindshare with consumers, I don’t think this will have a negative impact on iPod sales at all, and if it does, all Apple would have to do is allow for iTS purchases via TV and the iPhone. This announcement will drive even more people to use iTunes to buy music.
Or you can buy the CD….
My ears can tell the difference between 128 kbps AAC and 160 kbps AAC. Above that, not so much.
You have to remember, it costs more to provide the bandwidth to send a tune with twice the quality. There is no savings on removing the DRM because that is part of iTunes, not the music file.
As soon as this new service is available, I will be buying my first iTS music.
this isn’t as big as i’d hoped for. 256k?? apple is slacking. if they don’t offer a 99 cent, one click “send the band to my house to perform the song live instantly” feature, i’ll never buy from iTS again!
but seriously… 256k is good. i can’t tell the difference much above 192k vbr, which is how i encode all my music. you want lossless? ask the studios to start releasing 24/96 tracks. CDs are a lossy format, because that’s “only” 16/44.
ahh, nothing like stirring the pot a little in the morning. =)
Presumably we’ll be able to use these DRM-free songs in our iLife software such as iMovie without burning a CD and ripping them back again.