Free as a Bird
Today’s big news is a goodie: Apple has announced that the entire catalog of EMI, one of the “big four” record companies, is to be offered completely free of digital rights management on the iTunes store in May! This is a major coup for Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who wrote a very candid treatise on the subject in February. Higher quality 256K tracks are $1.29 compared to their 99-cent crippled brethren, but if you’ve already bought music from EMI artists, you’ll be able to upgrade your purchases by paying the difference. Music videos will be totally unencumbered for $1.99, and there’s no extra charge for DRM-free albums, which are usually $9.99.
What does this mean? Well, I believe this is a major step forward in the media revolution of the 21st century. As more and more people store their entire movie and music collections on PCs, they’ve rightfully become disenfranchised with the desire of the resident media cartels to make them pay for entertainment every single time it’s consumed. Jobs has recognized the foolishness of this notion, and I applaud him for his efforts (which I hope will extend to motion pictures someday). According to the press release, other record companies intend to follow suit, and despite the increase in price, I bet they’ll be surprised with the results. (However, no one should be surprised when these tracks inevitably show up on the freeloader’s paradise of peer-to-peer services.)
So, for those of you who are like me and have only indulged in the weekly free offerings of iTunes, I’d encourage you to drop a few dollars there come May. Without DRM, tracks will play on any device that uses the AAC audio codec, and you’ll be able to enjoy digital music the way it’s supposed to be!
(Where’d that incongruous title come from, you ask? “Free as a Bird” is a song from the first Beatles Anthology album. EMI distributes the Beatles’ catalog with Apple Records, who’s been surprisingly left out of today’s announcement given the recent détente they’ve come to with Apple Inc. Hopefully the Fab Four’s music will have a “Ticket to Ride” on iTunes soon.)
Posted by Jamie
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