I realize it's April 2nd, but I feel a strong desire to cry out "April Fools!"

The bitter cynic in me just can't die.

It's about freaking time... Although are many people going to pay an extra 30% so it can still play on their iPod?

Higher encoding rates!!! "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. iTunes will continue to offer its entire catalog, currently over five million songs, in the same versions as today-128 kbps AAC encoding with DRM-at the same price of 99 cents per song, alongside DRM-free higher quality versions when available." YEAH!!!!!!!

OK, Giz, and all other Apple fanbois out there. Mark this date on your calendar. Bookmark this pge. What you are about to read will probably not happen ever again. What you are about to read is shocking even to me as it comes out of my mouth:

"Way to go, Steve Jobs / Apple"!

Awesome. I might just buy a song or two from iTunes now.
Could this be the big turnaround moment for the music industry?
When other record companies see the spike in iTunes sales for EMI they'll have no choice but to remove DRM as well.
While I'm not happy with the price increase, at least they upped the sample rate and are giving codec choices.
Bravo EMI.

Vive La Revolution! Personally, I credit Giz for their month long anti-RIAA stance for getting this done.

Good job guys!

I have over 100 gig of music in my iTunes folder. 99.9% from CDs ripped in ACC losses, so each song takes up quite a bit more space than 128k songs.

Even though I have only purchased, maybe, 15 songs from Apple and will probably never buy more then another 40 in my lifetime, I think this is great. Not much benifit to me personally, but good for the industry. Not perfect, but a step in the right direction.

yay!

While today's announcement is certainly great news, I am a little
disappointed they won't be offering lossless audio.

wow.

Plus 256k AAC encodes? Money in the bank, imo. One of the most annoying things about DRM music is when I move to a different computer, forget to deauthorize the old one that's currently vegging out in my closet with no OS on it, and now I'm boned because I was at my mom's house and wanted to listen to some songs on my home computer (go go virtual networking + iTunes sharing). Very annoying.

$1.29 a song is still too much money imo, especially since we're cutting out brick and mortar, packaging, any kind of promotional work, as well as recording fees, and agent costs, since all of the work is done (cause it's their catalogue...)

but a huge step forward!

...and it's still cheaper (in some cases) to buy the CD, rip it at that quality, and stick it (slightly) to the RIAA, since I believe that they do not make as much money off iTunes/Naptser/et al. as they do off CD purchases. Plus I can rip them at any bitrate I choose, and any format.

It's about time music purchased online is as easy to use as pirated music. I hope consumers support this to convince other major publishers to follow suit. 256kbps aac full albums for $9.99 sounds good to me.

Awesome, this is fabulous news!

Goddamnit. Now I have to pay an extra 3 bucks for my iTunes albums to take up twice as much room on my iPod, just to prove the point. Why the fuck couldn't they replace the existing DRM junk with this, instead of making it a bullshit "premium" download?

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.

And ditto for music videos -- now that calls for a huzzah! But it seems that any albums I've already purchased would have to be upgraded song-by-30¢-song?

Finally, someone caught on that the only people that get hurt by DRM are the ones downloading it legitly. I mean, when was the last time you heard of a pirate going around pirating DRM'd music? But pirates can already get the Entire Beatles Disco. ^^

hells yes :)

hey! we'll give you drm-free music.... AT A 30% SURCHARGE.

NO THANKS. i'll stick to buying records at shows or just plain ole stealing it.

"video was never distributed DRM-free "
Did he forget about the video tapes?

Yes, I don't quite understand why removing an extra step in the process of encoding the music would result in it costing MORE. DRM being gone is good and all, but... theres no sense in raising the price. Its just asking people to continue stealing. And then when not many people go for their extra "premium" songs, they will turn around and say: "LOOK, NO DRM, BUT NO ONE IS BUYING IT! I KNEW IT WOULD FAIL! PUT DRM BACK ON!"

I don't know if you guys caught this; but per the Apple press-release http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/04/02itunes.html
"DRM-Free Songs from EMI Available on iTunes for $1.29 in May"

I hadn't heard anyone else mention a date. Looks like another vague Apple release month target.

Why should anyone pay more for what they should have gotten in the first place?! Thanks for making the more expensive music easy to copy, since that's how I'll get it.

I'm a little discouraged by his feelings on movie / show DRM, but I will buy at least one EMI album in 256k AAC to show my support should this come to pass.

Like most iPod users, according to stats that have been released and covered here, most of my digital music in iTunes is from my own CDs. 98.5%, to be exact. I have 172 songs purchased from iTunes out of 11528 total. I still have 50 or so CDs to rip, so that percentage will go even lower.

I rip at 320bps, because I also like to burn mix CDs for my wife's car and my home stereo.

I agree with some of the cynical opinions here, but still, this can only be viewed as progress. More walls will fall.

Higher quality is good, and now I don't have to burn my 192bit AAC-DRM songs to disc then re-rip as even crappier MP3s.

It took Steve Jobs alot of time and effort to write that letter. He needs to be compensated.

Yes, I don't quite understand why removing an extra step in the process of encoding the music would result in it costing MORE. DRM being gone is good and all, but... theres no sense in raising the price.

Sure there is: the value of a 256kbps DRM-free music track is higher for most people than the value of a 128kbps DRM-restricted track, so it is entirely likely people will be willing to pay more for it.

While I applaud the direction Apple's going here, they (and EMI) certainly missed a huge opportunity to sell tracks that are otherwise identical to the DRM'd versions and see what it did for sales.

By doubling the size (I'm sure not gonna want to put those on my iPod nano or Apple TV) and upping the price, they've thrown in two new variables that will cause some users not to flock to them. I think it would have been great if they just announced they were dropping the DRM on EMI songs and (once they did) we could see a nice chart of all the additional EMI track sales.

Yeah, I will buy a few bits from EMI on this news. I don't want to go overboard though as EMI hasn't dropped DRM on everything yet. I'm still not sure if I want the RIAA to survive at all. The hurt the RIAA has caused is just too deep at this point I think? I don't see the reason for the RIAA to exist anymore. I'd rather see all the bands go Independent.

Just a quick question... If there is no more DRM, how would you prove that your non-DRM tracks were purchased and not pirated? Besides keeping all your iTMS receipts...

Wow... I thought it was going to be tougher than this to climb the first hurdle.

I'm going to buy some tracks on iTunes (first EVAR!) just to support this action.

That said, Gizmodo, stick to your anti-RIAA boycott (except for EMI?).

I, too, will be purchasing my first EVER tacks on ITMS to support this action. I don't own an iPod (or any other AAC-compatible player), but I think $10 to support this movement is worth every penny.

Congrats, Apple! And welcome to the real world, EMI, where the consumer indeed rules.

Wow, never thought this would happen, and it's an awesome moment.

This statement bothers me:
"When asked if DRM would be removed from videos and movies from Disney-the company in which Jobs is a major stockholder-Jobs replied that he saw video and music as two different things, where video was never distributed DRM-free as 90 percent of music has in the past."

Umm, video was never DRM free? What about VHS/Betamax? I know it's not the same as DVD but are you kidding me?

This is what I mean about Jobs talking out of two sides of his mouth. Remove DRM unless it is in my best interests. He's getting close to being up there with the good ol' Balmer spin.

I guess I'm just a die-hard skeptic too.
Notice that they say "in May". So maybe that means they're only going to try it out for a month and if people don't completely fall all over themselves to repurchase their entire ITMS libraries, they'll yank it back in June.

"Oh, sorry, user response was, unfortunately, well below our expectations..."

"I've never trusted Klingons, and I never will..."

With this, I'm more likley to buy, but in the event I want more than a couple of songs, I'll still buy the CD (or SACD) to get the higher quality.

This is great news and a great opportunity for people to take the RIAA boycott to the next level. By spending your money on the songs without DRM and proving that they will generate more profit than songs with DRM you will be speaking to the RIAA and the rest of the music industry in the one language they understand: $$$.

Come on Gizmodo give EMI some more props for this call for an end to the boycott on EMI artists. Let's get some sales going there way now that they've taken DRM out of the picture.

One step closer to me buying music online instead of on Audio CD for ripping.

Awesome! The only thing that could've moved me to iTunes was lossless/DRM free music. This is a great step to that becoming a reality. Now to try the listening test on my home system...

Yeah it's good news but I'm not going to give anyone a congrats for not screwing us anymore. It never should have been used in the first place, there's no protection you can write that someone can't break. I think they got sick of paying all the money for DRMI schemes just to hear some guy in Norway broke it the day before the first song was officially released.

i am doing GCSE media studies and i am looking for imformation on record labels and the music industry in general please help me!JEN