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 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.
Mark Hachman reports for PC Magazine, “A Scandinavian watchdog group… welcomed the move. ‘No matter how the digital music market develops, today will always stand out [as] a very important date, the day when two of the really big market players finally took responsibility that follows from the position and made an interoperable solution available to consumers,’ said Torgeir Waterhouse, senior advisor to the Norwegian Consumer Council, in an email. ‘I applaud their move, and encourage all the other contenders in the digital music business to make the same important move.'”
“‘It’s important to note that this move does not take the heat off iTunes for the end of September deadline,’ Waterhouse added. ‘By the end of September they need to alter the terms of service and DRM used in the iTunes Music Store to provide a fair deal to the consumers who legally buy music. Still, this move by EMI and Apple today should serve as proof that it really is possible to fix the problems the industry has chosen to introduce with DRM,'” Hachman reports.
Full article here.
You’re so vain
I’ll bet you think this song is about you
Don’t you, don’t you…
Related articles:
Norway responds to Apple CEO Jobs’ call for DRM-free music – February 09, 2007
Norwegian Ombudsman: Apple’s FairPlay DRM is illegal in Norway – January 24, 2007
iTWire: Norway deeming Apple’s iTunes ‘illegal’ is one of the dumbest decisions of all time – January 25, 2007
Norwegian Ombudsman: Apple’s FairPlay DRM is illegal in Norway – January 24, 2007
CNBC video: Apple CEO Steve Jobs and EMI Group CEO Eric Nicoli – April 02, 2007
EMI’s Nicoli on DRM-free iTunes: ‘We have to trust our consumers,’ Apple’s Jobs: ‘right thing to do’ – April 02, 2007
Kudos to Steve Jobs and Apple for having courage to call for end of DRM and making it happen – April 02, 2007
Analyst Gartenberg: iTunes Store’s DRM-free music ‘a great win for Apple’ – April 02, 2007
Apple CEO Steve Jobs to appear live on CNBC within the hour – April 02, 2007
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
Technology Review editor gets a lot wrong in his article about Apple CEO Jobs’ push to end 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
Norway happens to be a cool place with cool people. So stuff it. Oh, and whats the comparison.. the US? The wonder of the Earth?
So relax, let everyone have an opinion. If no watchdogs look out for consumers, bigbucks will run all over us.
Great take, MDN. 😀
MW: why, as in why was that empty threat necessary? It just made them look silly and weak. . .
I’m left-handed, but politically right of Rush. So, yes, I am right.
… and why are some, ever-so-prudish Americans so frightened of writing such good, down-to-earth, and long-accepted Anglo-Saxon words like ‘shit’.
For all the ignorant rednecks (like Ron) here:
Norway is an extremely cool country. It’s people are generally better educated and earn a hell of a lot more per capita than the US. Their consumer coucil is wrong when it comes to iTunes / iPod interoperabilty and other issues, but in general Norway is cool. I find it actually not so bad that they’re not in the EU, given all the crap the EU has been up to lately.
Rednecks, please take your heads out of your a**es long enough to let your minds work…
Because I don’t want to slither into the gutter with most of today’s culture.
Actually – lack of culture.
ron,
so writing ‘sh-t’ is ‘cultural’ and writing ‘shit’ isn’t.
Very strange!
Norway – 4.6 million people, GDP 334.9 billion US
US of A – 300 million people, GDP 12.5 trillion US
2006 data from The Economist
how do ya like them facts?
Norway… champion of freedom, destroyer of Nazism and Communism, Gives aid the people of the world during every natural disaster (earthquake, tsunami, hurricane, flood, famine, etc.).
Oh wait… Am I thinking of the right country?
This DRM free stuff kind of Makes Zune look like more of the kornturd that it is. Do you think chairs are sailing in Redmond? Why is anyone ever going to use the zunestore now?
I have nothing against Norway, and will not make immature jabs at them over this, but their position is absolutely ridiculous. It’s blatantly obvious, especially after this morning’s announcement, that Apple is not the problem here, but rather the record companies. Why is it Apple’s responsibility? They don’t have the power to change this, unless they either give everyone else the option to use Fairplay, or adopt someone else’s DRM (Microsoft’s). Neither option is acceptable and would hurt their business. Apple is already taking the smallest slice of the pie, why should they have to sacrifice?
Fanboy,
yes, you’re thinking of the right country.
Norway gives far, far more money to the third world, per capita, than the U.S.
And it pollutes the atmosphere, per capita, far, far less.
One thing many of you still fail to realize is that Apple is pretty much the only truly international digital record store. Zune marketplace isn’t even available in Canada (or the Zune for that matter), let alone Norway.
Most of the “competition” to iTunes that deal with subscription-based music are also not available outside of the USofA.
For most of the people outside the tidy borders of America, Apple is digital music. (sure, there are really, really minor players in many other countries, but none come within spitting distance of the big Apple machine – ie: Puretracks in Canada, etc).
So, for Norway, the Apple iTunes store may be the one the only digital music store. For sure they don’t even know what a Zune is (except maybe a French-Canadian term for genitals)
@mrmikey – I almost died laughing about the Zune definition.
As for the article, my gut reaction is, as always: Yeah, because the fact that Apple had to DRM in the first place was ALL Apple’s doing – oh brother. Anyway, maybe we can start to move past trying to demonize Apple for no really good reason – maybe?
So, come September just remove the DRM songs from Norway’s iTMS. Apple will still be selling iPods, the store will still be open with almost half their songs, and the other music companies can deal with their artist that will all be pissed off that their music is not on Apple’s store.
By Gosh, I think “The Other Steve” has the answer here. Well done, sir!
Norway contributes far more to global warming per capita than most countries, including the US, because they pump and export all that lovely oil that others burn and produce CO2. BTW, the fact that they’re swimming in oil is also the reason they have such a high GDP per capita. In other words, they were born on third base and think they hit a triple.
Kate
P.S. I have nothing against Norway, BTW, though their “consumer advocates” are full of BS.
Norway contributes far more to global warming per capita than most countries, including the US, because they pump and export all that lovely oil that others burn and produce CO2. BTW, the fact that they’re swimming in oil is also the reason they have such a high GDP per capita. In other words, they were born on third base and think they hit a triple.
Kate
P.S. I have nothing against Norway, BTW, though their “consumer advocates” are full of BS.
Norway contributes far more to global warming per capita than most countries, including the US, because they pump and export all that lovely oil that others burn and produce CO2. BTW, the fact that they’re swimming in oil is also the reason they have such a high GDP per capita. In other words, they were born on third base and think they hit a triple.
Kate
P.S. I have nothing against Norway, BTW, though their “consumer advocates” are full of BS.
Norway contributes far more to global warming per capita than most countries, including the US, because they pump and export all that lovely oil that others burn and produce CO2. BTW, the fact that they’re swimming in oil is also the reason they have such a high GDP per capita. In other words, they were born on third base and think they hit a triple.
Kate
P.S. I have nothing against Norway, BTW, though their “consumer advocates” are full of BS.
Although you (who are not prepared to name yourself – probably with good reason) conveniently overlook the fact that no country on earth, that has access to marketable quantities of oil, doesn’t exploit it.
So it’s not a Norwegian problem, but a human one.
Those defending Norway only do so because they know that the social system there is far superior and fairer than that in the US.
I named myself. It’s near the bottom of my post, you dipshit–apparently you can’t read. I’d be happy to give you my address too so you can come over here and I can kick you in the rocks.
BTW, aren’t you embarrassed to be stammering in public about how every country “exploits” its oil or that Norway has a “superior” social system?
Nobody, regardless of how stupid, has ever argued that those who sell a “harmful” product are less culpable than those who buy it. Congratulations!! You’re the first.
Also, given me several million metric tons of oil reserves and I’ll act “superior” too by throwing a few crumbs to the poor.
KATE
KATE
KATE
KATE
KATE
“dipshit”
“kick you in the rocks”
You’re rhetorical prowess reigns supreme.
I throw in the gauntlet!
Well. this thread started out OK this morning. One thing is obvious about this MDN thread (and others like it over the years): Moronic, zenophobes live on both sides of the Atlantic.
Norway – the Mouse that Roared!
I doubt the announcement would have been made today or at least so soon unless the Scandinavian countries and France had complained, whether I agree with them or not.
Norway regulators are such idiots. As we all know and have said a hundred times, all you have to do is burn a CD, then you’ve got exactly what you buy from the stores.
What on earth is wrong with that?
In Australia, we have a name for it: ‘The tall poppy syndrome”. Apple’s the tall poppy, that’s the one they want to cut down to size.