Apple, EMI to Sell Protection-Free Songs
Posted on: Tuesday, 3 April 2007, 06:00 CDT
By Michelle Kessler
Apple and EMI Music shook up the music industry Monday by announcing plans to sell more than 150,000 digital songs without copy protection.
The "premium" songs -- from Coldplay, Norah Jones and other artists on the giant EMI record label -- can be freely copied and played on almost any digital music player.
That's a huge change. Most music sold online contains copy protection software. It's meant to prevent piracy but also can make digital music hard to use. Songs bought at Apple's iTunes Store are played only on music players made by Apple, for example.
The protection-free songs, available in May, will let consumers choose which music player they want to use, says music analyst Michael Gartenberg at JupiterResearch. And although the songs released from EMI are a small part of the 5 million-song iTunes catalog, Apple CEO Steve Jobs predicts that they will open the entire industry.
Other record labels will be forced to follow EMI's lead, he says. He hopes to have at least 2.5 million songs protection-free by the end of the year.
And iTunes won't be alone. EMI plans to make premium songs available to other digital music stores soon, EMI CEO Eric Nicoli says.
The songs also will be higher quality than typical digital recordings. But music lovers will pay more for them. ITunes plans to sell premium songs for $1.29 each. Standard songs, which will still be available, cost 99 cents.
Shoppers will get a break if they buy an entire premium album, which will cost the same as a standard album. Customers who already own standard-format songs can upgrade them for 30 cents.
Nicoli says he doesn't expect much impact on music piracy. Protection has never been foolproof, so unauthorized copies will always be available. "We have to trust our customers," he says.
EMI is also making its digital video library, mostly music videos, available without copy protection. But don't expect movie and TV companies to follow, Jobs says.
Most music CDs are sold without protection software so they can be copied to a PC or music player. Protection-free music downloads are essentially the same thing, Jobs says.
Most DVDs can't be copied or burned. Protection-free video downloads are a huge leap, he says.
It's unclear how much the music industry will embrace the protection-free songs. "There is no logical reason to abandon (copy protection)," Edgar Bronfman Jr., CEO of EMI-rival Warner Music Group, said in a recent speech. Player-maker Samsung plans to cautiously observe the experiment, says Matt Durgin, product manager.
At a minimum, the deal is a marketing win for Apple and EMI, who now have a reputation for giving customers what they want, Gartenberg says. (c) Copyright 2005 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.
Source: USA TODAY
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