Today is a day of victory for Fair Use and I applaud EMI’s decision to stop being evil and offering up their entire music catalog DRM free. For the first time in many years we have a business decision that finally makes sense.
Audio consumers worldwide should herald this decision and congratulate EMI.
Starting in May you will be able to purchase 256kb encoded singles for $1.29 each and lower encoded rates at a lower price. These will be delivered in AAC which is a smart move as most media players today will play AAC files including the Zune. AAC does not come with the legal issues that MP3 files have.
I will honor my commitment and start purchasing songs as soon as they come available and will for the first time in years purchase a boat load of DRM free music. EMI
This is pretty cool. Let’s hope this starts something.
What about players that do support AAC such as the Creative Zen Vision:M or the Sandisk Sansa? Hopefully, DRM-free WMA files will be available from Yahoo Music, Rhapsody, etc.
I do not think this is the revelation people think it will be, nobody that I know is downloading illegal music is going to pay for it any time soon, I predict that EMI will realize that it is too little too late and go back to the wicked ways within a year.
did you see it won’t cost any extra for complete albums? I bought stuff on iTunes in the past, and I will buy again now that I can get DRM-free songs.
Finally, part of the music industry have realised that consumers don’t appreciated DRM in their music. Personally, I am willing to pay that little extra in order to get DRM free music, and I know a lot of people that think the same way.
Consumers don’t like being locked down, so this is a great achievement for EMI to stand out and offer this DRM free collection.
Mark