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Apple Unveils Higher Quality DRM-Free Music on the iTunes Store
DRM-Free Songs from EMI Available on iTunes for $1.29 in May

CUPERTINO, California�April 2, 2007�Apple today announced that EMI
Music�s entire digital catalog of music will be available for purchase
DRM-free (without digital rights management) from the iTunes� Store
(www.itunes.com) worldwide in May. DRM-free tracks from EMI will be
offered at higher quality 256 kbps AAC encoding, resulting in audio
quality indistinguishable from the original recording, for just $1.29
per song. In addition, iTunes customers will be able to easily upgrade
their entire library of all previously purchased EMI content to the
higher quality DRM-free versions for just 30 cents a song. iTunes will
continue to offer its entire catalog, currently over five million songs,
in the same versions as today�128 kbps AAC encoding with DRM�at the same
price of 99 cents per song, alongside DRM-free higher quality versions
when available.

�We are going to give iTunes customers a choice�the current versions of
our songs for the same 99 cent price, or new DRM-free versions of the
same songs with even higher audio quality and the security of
interoperability for just 30 cents more,� said Steve Jobs, Apple�s CEO.
�We think our customers are going to love this, and we expect to offer
more than half of the songs on iTunes in DRM-free versions by the end of
this year.�

�EMI and iTunes are once again teaming up to move the digital music
industry forward by giving music fans higher quality audio that is
virtually indistinguishable from the original recordings, with no usage
restrictions on the music they love from their favorite artists,� said
Eric Nicoli, CEO of EMI Group.

With DRM-free music from the EMI catalog, iTunes customers will have the
ability to download tracks from their favorite EMI artists without any
usage restrictions that limit the types of devices or number of
computers that purchased songs can be played on. DRM-free songs
purchased from the iTunes Store will be encoded in AAC at 256 kbps,
twice the current bit rate of 128 kbps, and will play on all iPods, Mac�
or Windows computers, Apple TVs and soon iPhones, as well as many other
digital music players.

iTunes will also offer customers a simple, one-click option to easily
upgrade their entire library of all previously purchased EMI content to
the higher quality DRM-free format for 30 cents a song. All EMI music
videos will also be available in DRM-free format with no change in
price.

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/04/02itunes.html

-- 
-filipp
http://unflyingobject.com
"The future is here. It's just not evenly distributed yet."
-- William Gibson