British EMI Group officially announces selling music without DRM at Apple's iTunes Store

A press release has been issued from EMI Group in the UK. According to it, it says it will sell DRM-free music that is not granted DRM which is so-called copying prevention measures. Also, it seems that this DRM - free music will be sold from Apple's iTunes Store for download.

Currently, songs downloaded and sold from the iTunes Store are subject to usage restrictions by "DRM (Digital Rights Management)" FairPlay ", which can not be played by other digital players. However, if it becomes DRM free, in the future you will be able to play it with your favorite player indefinitely.

DRM-free songs are $ 1.29 per song, and standard songs with DRM will continue to be offered for $ 0.99. Also, if you have already purchased songs with DRM, you will be able to upgrade to $ 0.3 per song to make the same song DRM-free. Regarding the music video, the DRM-less edition also said that the price will be the same as before.

Details are as follows.
EMI Music launches DRM-free superior sound quality downloads across its entire digital repertoire

Eric Nicoli, CEO of the EMI Group, announced that it will download and sell DRM-free high-quality music through Apple's iTunes Store at the press conference held in London earlier. It is provided as a supplement to songs protected by existing DRM, and various bit rates can be selected up to CD quality bit rate. This decision meets the demand from consumers and is intended to be used freely by home music system, mobile phone, digital music player and so on. By providing this DRM-free music, it will be available to every music player, every device, every platform.

According to Eric Nicoli, CEO of the EMI group, we anticipate that the number of songs sold will increase by the decision this time, consumers can listen to high quality music using their favorite devices It is because it is.

Also, Apple is pioneer in true digital music, it is possible to provide consumers with interoperable markets for quality and convenience, and it is very pleasing that we could share this vision with each other I am doing it.

In addition, Apple CEO Steve Jobs said that selling DRM-free music is a right direction for the music industry.

What kind of correspondence does each company offering other songs create? Also, is this the opportunity to break the iron cooperation between iPod and iTunes Store? It is still a situation that we can not predict.

By the way, EMI is a British company, it seems to be one of the four major record companies with Universal Music, Sony BMG, Warner Music. "Toshiba EMI" in Japan is a subsidiary of this EMI, although it has the name of Toshiba, since it sold all the shares to the head office etc, actually there is almost no relationship with Toshiba. Will this DRM-free be realized in Japan, too?