Apple and EMI today joined announced that EMI music will be available from iTunes DRM-free. Even though it was obvious the momentum was heading in this direction, I still wasn’t going to believe it until I saw it. This is a big day for consumer rights. Here are the nitty details:
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.
All in all, this seems quite fair. EMI is obviously using the DRM-free tracks as a way to increase full album sales (by not changing the price for DRM-free and higher sound quality on album sales, but making them $0.30 more on a per-track basis), but I can live with that.
Thanks you, EMI, for being the first big boy to see the light, and thank you, Steve Jobs, for helping convince them. Visit site »
Web Standards Creativity is now shipping. I’ve still yet to receive my own copy, but Simon got his and took a few pictures for the world to see. This should be an exciting book, so if you haven’t already, go get yours. Visit site »