Apple’s DRM-free EMI deal ‘a master stroke that should cement Apple’s dominance’

17 years ago

“Apple’s deal to put the EMI music catalog on its iTunes store without antipiracy software is a master stroke that should cement Apple’s dominance — and could lead the change in how most consumers get their music,” Priya Ganapati reports for TheStreet.com.

Ganapati reports, “The lack of restrictions and the higher-quality sound could potentially make iTunes the clear choice for music distribution, as users get rid of the intermediary step of buying CDs from retailers and ‘ripping’ tunes onto their iPod.”

MacDailyNews Take: Users were already eschewing the practice of buying CDs and ripping them via iTunes and the iTunes Store was already the clear choice for legal online music distribution before yesterday. Apple’s DRM-free, higher quality deal with EMI (and the others sure to follow) will only accelerate what was already taking place.

Ganapati continues, “By opening up the iTunes system, Apple has turned itself into the most important link in the music distribution business and has turned up the heat on subscription-based digital music rivals… Apple expects about half of the 5 million songs currently on iTunes to be offered DRM-free by the end of the year.”

MacDailyNews Take: Like Apple needed to turn up the heat. The subscription outfits were already baking to a crisp in a blast furnace simply because they are trying (and failing) to offer something designed mainly to extract recurring revenue, not to fulfill consumer’s desires. People want to own music, not rent it.

Ganapati continues, “For Apple, this move could signal the next evolutionary change in the iPod/iTunes empire.”

Full article here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “LinuxGuy and Mac Prodigal Son” for the heads up.]