iTunes Drops DRM for EMI Tracks

Exciting News!

This is an email I received from FreeCulture @ NYU:

April 2nd, 2007

Breaking news… This is not an April Fools joke: iTunes will release significant portions of EMI's catalog on iTunes without DRM. It hasn't been announced live, but their website has been updated:

EMI Music launches DRM-free superior sound quality downloads across its entire digital repertoire

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.

On this page you can find an audio webcast of the press conference which will be available for live streaming at 1pm London time with on demand archived streaming and MP3 download available shortly afterwards, the press release and a copy of the presentation slides.

Click here to listen to the audio webcast from today's announcement.
Click here to download the pdf presentation.

Other juicy tidbits from the press release:

• EMI tracks with no DRM (Mp3) will cost $1.29 from iTunes and will also be available in other formats (AAC and WMA).
• All EMI music videos will also be available on the iTunes Store DRM-free with no change in price.
• 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.

Congratulations to all those who showed up at our DRM protests! Your voices have been heard!

--
The content of this email message is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License, Some Rights Reserved.
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/ --- You are currently subscribed to free-culture as: sbc281@nyu.edu To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-free-culture-2835305Q@forums.nyu.edu