EMI To Sell Music Without Anticopying Software
EMI to Sell Music Without Anticopying Software
Online-Strategy Shift,Breaks With Industry On Combating PiracyBy ETHAN SMITH and NICK WINGFIELD, Wall Street Journal, April 1, 2007 11:42 p.m.;
In a major break with the music industry's longstanding antipiracy strategy, EMI Group PLC is set to announce today that it plans to sell significant amounts of its catalog without anticopying software, according to people familiar with the matter.
The London music company is to make its announcement at a London news conference featuring Apple Inc. Chief Executive Steve Jobs. EMI is to sell songs without the software -- known as digital rights management -- through Apple's iTunes Store and possibly through other online outlets.
DRM has been a contentious issue in online music sales. Record companies have insisted that digital retailers employ the software to prevent rampant copying. But because the DRM used by Apple is proprietary and doesn't work with services or devices made by competitors, it has had the additional consequence of locking owners of its popular iPod music players into buying the most popular mainstream music from the iTunes store, and not from its competitors.
Record companies have blamed this lock-in for limiting digital-music sales, which account for around 15% of all recorded-music sales in the U.S.
EMI's move comes after months of private discussions and public advocacy by Internet and technology-industry executives, including Mr. Jobs, aimed at encouraging the music industry to change its approach to licensing music for sale online. In February, Mr. Jobs took the unusual step of posting an 1,800-word essay on Apple's Web site urging major recording companies to consider dropping their insistence that music be sold over the Internet with DRM software....read more:
here4/02/2007 06:59:00 AM
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