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The floodgates are opening slowly...

Sydney, Australia

Good...

Glad MDN is here. Cannot get the feed from the EMI website.

I still thought it was an April Fool's trick since the only links offered were Windoze Media and Real Player. If it 's a real (no pun intended) wouldn't Jobs insist that they use QuickTime?

I can't get the feed eaither. It would have worked fine with QT.

Hey editors, April 1 was yesterday. What gives with the Fools' a day late?

You're either part of the problem, part of the solution, or part of the scenery.

Now that EMI has collectively pulled their heads from their posteriors, it's only a matter of time before the rest of them crumbles, either by their own choice or by market forces.

This is very good news for music consumers.. no telling if this will effect movies and other forms of media, time will tell.

I'm listening live as well... they didn't say any such thing :S what gives MDN?

Anybody know which artists are signed with EMI? This is so cool!! Nobody likes DRM!

Yawn. This is really no news. Higher prices for DRM-free music? Um, how about I just burn my songs to CD and then re-import them. Ridiculous.

Okay. It's about time. The rest will be forced to follow soon enough.

The 256K sample rate is a good start, but Apple Lossless would be better. I just re-ripped a lot of my music in Lossless and it's a huge improvement over 256 w/variable bit rate.

If you're into interesting and/or obscure music, you're STILL out of luck.

Connected to the webcast a bit late, so all I'm hearing is some generic rock music. zzzzzzzzz

Ace - check the press release page on EMI.

Artists include: Lily Allen, The Beatles, Coldplay, Corinne Bailey Rae, The Good The Bad & The Queen, Gorillaz, Norah Jones, The Kooks, Korn, Kylie Minogue, Pink Floyd, Rolling Stones, Joss Stone, 30 Seconds To Mars, KT Tunstall, Keith Urban and Robbie Williams, as well as international artists such as Amaral (Spain), Diam’s (France), Utada Hikaru (Japan), LaFee (Germany), Radja (Indonesia), RBD (Mexico) and Vasco Rossi (Italy).

Time for those of us who care about DRM free content and giving music consumers back power and ownership of their music to step up and reward EMI for their brave decision. Don't buy from Warner, Sony, etc til they cave, and load up on all the EMI artists that you like.

The RIAA doesn't listen to people bitching and whining, heck they sue 10 year old girls, and grandmothers, but one thing they DO pay attention to is MONEY.

Cold. Hard. Cash.

If they see it flowing into EMI's pocket and not into theirs, I assure you they will sing a very different tune *very* quickly.

How is $1.29 more expensive than $15 when you only want one song from the album?

This will be interesting to follow. Are consumers willing to pay thirty cents extra for higher quality, DRM-free music, or will they watch their wallets and continue to purchase music w/ DRM for 99 cents? Very interesting indeed!

making all of its digital repertoire available at a much higher sound quality than existing downloads and free of digital rights management (DRM) restrictions.

Does this include the Beatles?

Wonder if this will bite Apple now that it will be trivial to hop across iTunes to other stores and/or devices.

So that is cool and it sucks at the same time. What about losslessly encoded tracks? As in the cd quality term that every self righteous bastard keeps throwing around.

This annocement sucks!!

Paying more?? Not gonna work. It's just a small step when there could have been a big one.

I'm sure apple isn't over the moon.

Apple should have taken a price decrease to keep the standard 99 cent policy. Only for EMI though, as they were the early adopter. Maybe that wouldn't encourage others though?

Who knows....

"DRM is the future."

- Steve Ballmer

too bad they are not selling tracks at better than CD quality (24 bits or more, 96 khz sampling rate)

Microsofts way: Give one dollar per Zune sold to Universal, unfair (to the consumer, other record company's), in an attempt to force Apple to do the same.

(Apple actually makes a profit selling iPods, Microsoft looses even more money on the Zune thanks to this brilliant idea !

Apple's answer, force a huge record company to remove the DRM from it's music, increase profit by raising the price for the higher quality songs.

guess who made the best deal :D

Steve Jobs at the press conference says EMI premium tracks will be 256 kbps AAC and will be available next month (May)

I wonder if there is some sort of digital watermarking on these new DRM free songs.

@ no one in particular,

First of all, this is good news. Second, what's the big deal with the Beatles? Why do people seem to care so much about their music being online? Of course its great music, but does their albums being downloadable herald the arrival of online digital music? We can still get their music on CD, right? I just don't see what all the fuss is about. Maybe someone could explain it to me.

No! No! No! No! NoNo! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No!


That's my opinion, and if my shareholders don't like it I have other opinions that they may prefer.

BlackMac:

You can CHOOSE to pay $1.29 for a 256k bit rate track.
You can CHOOSE to pay 99¢ for the current 128k bit rate.

OR, had you listened, you can buy an entire album for exactly the same price, but it will be 256k bit rate.

Whit: Preferring music ripped in Apple Lossless has nothing to do with self-righteousness. It has everything to do with preferring higher quality sound.

I'd assume that as a Mac user by CHOICE, unless you're a Pee Sea troll with no life lurking Mac web sites, that you'd understand the preference for QUALITY and that it has nothing to do with snobberry, just a mixture of aesthetics and common sense.

Listening to this stuff, it's amazing that people…well, journalists don't get that the driving factor behind the success of the iTunes Jukebox and the iPod is the quality of the product and the accompanying software rather than some mythical umbilical link between iPod and iTS.

I've been telling you guys this would probably happen.

Then again I did have some inside info on the subject...

What remains to be seen now is how fast the other big three will follow suit.

I'll predict that Universal will be next (although my intel on them is over a year out of date now).

The biggest point is that this is ONLY the complete EMI DIGITAL catalogue...

this is an action to increase the income of EMI and a first step.

I see a chink in the armor of DMI but I don't see it happening fast as SJ & EMi hopes.

Good first step - I would pay the difference for better quality music in a heartbeat and to be able to update all of my music (eventually for the difference woudl be OK with me)
I figure those who don't want to pay the diff are htos e who are also still living at home and have ot ask for their allowance each week.


Cheers...

this is a good start. I'd like to see them go premium pricing for Apple Lossless and DRM-free across the board. 256 AAC sounds very very good.

Unless you are listening to extremely minimalist music (Pärt, Gorecki, O'Hallaran ... for example) on very good speakers or headphones, i doubt you can tell the difference between 256 AAC and lossless. AAC is not MP3 -- It sounds way better.

this is progress in an area that has been dominated by dinosaurs. Good job Steve Jobs, and good job EMI for stepping up.

So, all you loser out there who challenged me to put my money where my mouth is. Here ya go! Hope you don't choke on the feathers are you eat your well-deserved crow!

Bozos

S.

As yucky as it is in principle, I've never had any practical problems with DRM, and I don't expect to have any without.

The higher quality is great, but the higher price makes me cringe a bit; it's not unreasonable, but it does mess up the simplicity of iTunes' single-price scheme.

I am all for higher quality music. I usually rip cds in apple lossless. I also really dig DVD-A and SACD, but those formats are effectively dead for now.

I was referring to people who call lossy compressed music "cd-quality" self righteous bastards. I hope this clears that up.

Having listened to the whole webcast, Jobs is incredibly fantastic at answering questions, at keeping on topic, at repeating over and over the key points, which are:
1. This is a new product that I believe people want and are willing to pay a premium for, so we will give them a choice.
2. I will continue to offer the same product for people who are price-sensitive and don't have any issues for Fairplay DRM or today's quality. (There is no price increase for today's product.)
3. I will not speak poorly of anyone (any music label), rather I will encourage them to see the new and better way.

Nicoli of EMI sounds like a pretty good guy, too; he has a good sense of humor. And he revealed that this has been Steve's position for a long, long time. In other words, Jobs absolutely refused to move on song price until the labels agreed to these two things - no DRM and higher quality. And even then, he managed to keep album prices exactly the same - probably convinced EMI that this would sell more albums instead of singles.

Hey, just to prep you guys: Jobs kept saying that 128K AAC was the best of any store - which means he saying it's better than 192K WMA (that I think is offered somewhere). I forecast many will be arguing this.

I'll admit I've pirated a track or thirty... but that pales in comparison to my legit purchases (roughly 1000 CDs).

EMI... I will definitely purchase your non-DRM'd iTMS tracks rather than download for free.

I take that back... I'll probably stick to CDs on the really good stuff though - namely your Blue Note label.

Thanks! This is great news!

Considering that so many people have been happy to pay the current price with DRM I don't think many people will complain about paying just a bit more for twice the quality. I'm sure many who are happy with the current situation will still opt to save a few pennies and continue to buy the 128K DRM versions which will still be available. Yes the price increase for higher quality is disappointing but you could argue that it's still better value than the lower quality 128K files. I'd rather have seen them drop the price of 128K tracks and bring in the 256K ones at no more than current prices.

It's good that albums will DRM free and higher quality with no price increase so together with the recent 'Complete My Album' announcement albums are now a more attractive and practical option than they were. One thing I really want to see happen with albums is flexible pricing because it's ridiculous that so many older albums cost significantly more to download than they do when bought as CDs. Even new ablums can cost about the same or sometimes even more than a CD. Ablum downloads need to be around half their current price to make them popular.

As for the idea of Apple Lossless being used, that's just not going to happen for quite some time because of the file sizes involved and the fact that most people don't listen on high end equipment and so wouldn't really benefit. It's a bit like Apple Movie downloads not being full HD quality like some people think they should be. It's just not practical given current technology. 256K is a significant improvement over 128K whilst the file sizes are still practical for the masses. The right balance has been struck for now but I can imagine that in the future Lossless files be offered as an additional option.

I notice that music videos are going to be DRM free too which is good news.

It was Apple that made legal music downloads popular and now they're playing a part making in making the whole thing fairer to consumers so well done Apple and EMI. I suspect the movie industry is watching this but will be very very reluctant to follow suit and will probably take years to see the light, if they ever do.

God, I hate the RIAA! I hope someone locks them up in a Turkish prison.

The biggest point is that this is ONLY the complete EMI DIGITAL catalogue...

ahh all the music on the iTunes store is in a digital format.

i havnt got any LPs on the post from Apple recently.

"The floodgates are opening slowly...

Sydney, Australia"



Getting hit with that tsunami there today, eh Mike?

Interesting announcement. However, since Apple's current DRM does not bother me AND my ears (or my audio equipment) can't distinguish between 128k AAC and "lossless," I'm going to keep buying the 99-cent version for now. The exception will be if decide to buy the album and it's available DRM-free at the higher quality. Later on, when more companies are onboard with DRM-free, I might pay the extra 30 cents per track and "upgrade." But by that time, the price may be back down to 99 cents for DRM-free and higher quality (if that becomes the norm).

It will be interesting to hear what the "anti competitive" European crowd says now...

Those quotes you have iCal'ed MDN are fantastic - every single one was bagging Jobs when he released the letter - now they will be begging him to part of the future...and for it happen in a few short months makes it even more entertaining!

MW Speak - as in Middlebronfman is lost for words - can't speak!

Some people will have to eat their words now.

I remember reading an article by the BBC's Bill Thompson titled "Why I don't believe Steve Jobs" and I thought it was ridiculous at the time.

Check it out: BBC columnist doesn’t believe Steve Jobs’ Apple would stop using DRM if music labels would allow it

This will get me to actually buy music from ITMS. What a deal. If all the music on ITMS was like this, I'd never set foot in Best Buy of Circuit City ever again to buy music.

Well I'll be dammed.

Now people will expect other music players to work with iTunes.

*jaw still on the ground...*

Jobs is my hero!

Here's what I think will happen:

1. Another major label will come on board before the year's end. I predict Sony/BMG (process of elimination; Universal is currently in bed with MS, and we all know how Warner feels about non-DRM tracks)

2. iPod / iTunes has such a huge mindshare with consumers, I don't think this will have a negative impact on iPod sales at all, and if it does, all Apple would have to do is allow for iTS purchases via TV and the iPhone. This announcement will drive even more people to use iTunes to buy music.

Or you can buy the CD....

My ears can tell the difference between 128 kbps AAC and 160 kbps AAC. Above that, not so much.

You have to remember, it costs more to provide the bandwidth to send a tune with twice the quality. There is no savings on removing the DRM because that is part of iTunes, not the music file.

As soon as this new service is available, I will be buying my first iTS music.

this isn't as big as i'd hoped for. 256k?? apple is slacking. if they don't offer a 99 cent, one click "send the band to my house to perform the song live instantly" feature, i'll never buy from iTS again!

but seriously... 256k is good. i can't tell the difference much above 192k vbr, which is how i encode all my music. you want lossless? ask the studios to start releasing 24/96 tracks. CDs are a lossy format, because that's "only" 16/44.

ahh, nothing like stirring the pot a little in the morning. =)

Presumably we'll be able to use these DRM-free songs in our iLife software such as iMovie without burning a CD and ripping them back again.

$1.29 will screw up everything and will undoubtedly be the ploy to move single tracks to a higher price point. The beauty of iTunes is its simplicity. This is a step away from that. Watch for movie prices going up too once they are sold at HD quality. It's all about the money. It always is.