Apple to offer EMI tunes DRM-free

jEfFgObLuE

More Cowbell!

posted: 4/2/2007 at 9:45 AM
modified: 4/2/2007 at 9:47 AM

Apple will start selling tunes from the EMI record label free of all copy protection / Digital Restriction Management in May. The songs will be $1.29, and will be encoded in 256kbps AAC instead of the current 128kbps. So $0.30 extra gets a much higher quality recording with no restrictions on how to use it. (Don't abuse it!) Big grin

Missing from today's announcement was The Beatles (who are distributed by EMI, and recently made peace with Apple Computer). But here's what I think (and you heard it here first) -- remastered Beatles CD's and digital downloads will arrive June 1. Why June 1? 40th Anniversary of the release of Sgt. Pepper, and 20th anniversary of the original release of their stuff on CD. Cheers, Jeff

When you're on your deathbed, you won't be wishing that you'd spent more time at the office. But you will be wishing that you'd spent more time running. Because if you had, you wouldn't be on your deathbed.

zoom-zoom

Fanatic #3965

posted: 4/2/2007 at 9:48 AM

Interesting...I'm not sure that I would notice the increase in quality, since most of what I download is played on my iPod with sport headphones or on the craptacular speaker set-up connected to our 'puter. k

Kirsten

'07: 1324.5 | '08: 1561 | '09: 1810.9 run ~ 208.7 bike | '10: 1,000.3 run ~ 3513.5 bike | '11: 710.3 run ~ 4157.9 bike '12: 659.9 run ~ 3365.6 bike (100% benched by ortho last 4.5 weeks while in long-arm cast)

'13 Goals:

• DON'T BREAK ANYTHING!!!

• get within 5#s of 130#s (and stay there, gotdammit!)

• 1st olympic distance duathlon

• 1st Iceman Cometh mtn bike race

• Half Fanatic

• punch Type 1 in the junk

jEfFgObLuE

More Cowbell!

posted: 4/2/2007 at 9:54 AM
modified: 4/2/2007 at 9:56 AM

Quote from zoom-zoom on 4/2/2007 at 9:48 AM:

Interesting...I'm not sure that I would notice the increase in quality, since most of what I download is played on my iPod with sport headphones or on the craptacular speaker set-up connected to our 'puter.

True, but you won't have any more limits on how many CD's you can burn it to, or how many computers are allowed to play it on. You could even put it on a non-iPod player if you wanted to (not that I would encourage such behavior Tongue

). Plus, programs like that Tangerine that I posted about would no longer gack at the sight of iTunes-purchased tracks (at least not the ones from EMI). To me, the removal of DRM, and thus having the right to do what I want to do with the music that I pay for, is the key thing, and the quality is gravy. Hopefully, this deal will pressure the other major labels to kick DRM to the curb. Cheers, Jeff

When you're on your deathbed, you won't be wishing that you'd spent more time at the office. But you will be wishing that you'd spent more time running. Because if you had, you wouldn't be on your deathbed.

zoom-zoom

Fanatic #3965

posted: 4/2/2007 at 10:08 AM

Quote from jEfFgObLuE on 4/2/2007 at 9:54 AM:

Hopefully, this deal will pressure the other major labels to kick DRM to the curb.

Yeah, that would be sweet. Just to use a BPM program would be worth it for me, I think. Too bad it wouldn't work retroactively. k

Kirsten

'07: 1324.5 | '08: 1561 | '09: 1810.9 run ~ 208.7 bike | '10: 1,000.3 run ~ 3513.5 bike | '11: 710.3 run ~ 4157.9 bike '12: 659.9 run ~ 3365.6 bike (100% benched by ortho last 4.5 weeks while in long-arm cast)

'13 Goals:

• DON'T BREAK ANYTHING!!!

• get within 5#s of 130#s (and stay there, gotdammit!)

• 1st olympic distance duathlon

• 1st Iceman Cometh mtn bike race

• Half Fanatic

• punch Type 1 in the junk

jEfFgObLuE

More Cowbell!

posted: 4/2/2007 at 10:11 AM
modified: 4/2/2007 at 10:16 AM

Quote from zoom-zoom on 4/2/2007 at 10:08 AM:

Too bad it wouldn't work retroactively.

It will work sort-of retro. Apple's gonna offer a one-time shot to upgrade all your purchased EMI-music for $0.30 a song. So if you want to go DRM-free, you won't have to completely re-buy the song, just pay the difference... Big grin

Also, I just read that the album price isn't going up, at least initially. So paying the same price for a DRM-free high quality album is gonna make this bad boy think twice about buying more CD's.

When you're on your deathbed, you won't be wishing that you'd spent more time at the office. But you will be wishing that you'd spent more time running. Because if you had, you wouldn't be on your deathbed.

zoom-zoom

Fanatic #3965

posted: 4/2/2007 at 10:15 AM

Hmm...I wonder how many EMI tracks I have. Do they have a list of EMI artists?

Kirsten

'07: 1324.5 | '08: 1561 | '09: 1810.9 run ~ 208.7 bike | '10: 1,000.3 run ~ 3513.5 bike | '11: 710.3 run ~ 4157.9 bike '12: 659.9 run ~ 3365.6 bike (100% benched by ortho last 4.5 weeks while in long-arm cast)

'13 Goals:

• DON'T BREAK ANYTHING!!!

• get within 5#s of 130#s (and stay there, gotdammit!)

• 1st olympic distance duathlon

• 1st Iceman Cometh mtn bike race

• Half Fanatic

• punch Type 1 in the junk

jEfFgObLuE

More Cowbell!

posted: 4/2/2007 at 10:18 AM
modified: 4/2/2007 at 10:20 AM

Quote from zoom-zoom on 4/2/2007 at 10:15 AM:

Hmm...I wonder how many EMI tracks I have. Do they have a list of EMI artists?

Here you go... This might be more accurate...

When you're on your deathbed, you won't be wishing that you'd spent more time at the office. But you will be wishing that you'd spent more time running. Because if you had, you wouldn't be on your deathbed.

zoom-zoom

Fanatic #3965

posted: 4/2/2007 at 10:46 AM

Cool...I will have to go through and see if it's worth upgrading any of those... k

Kirsten

'07: 1324.5 | '08: 1561 | '09: 1810.9 run ~ 208.7 bike | '10: 1,000.3 run ~ 3513.5 bike | '11: 710.3 run ~ 4157.9 bike '12: 659.9 run ~ 3365.6 bike (100% benched by ortho last 4.5 weeks while in long-arm cast)

'13 Goals:

• DON'T BREAK ANYTHING!!!

• get within 5#s of 130#s (and stay there, gotdammit!)

• 1st olympic distance duathlon

• 1st Iceman Cometh mtn bike race

• Half Fanatic

• punch Type 1 in the junk

jEfFgObLuE

More Cowbell!

posted: 4/2/2007 at 10:54 AM

Also, I think when the whole thing goes down in May, the iTMS will tell you which songs are eligible for upgrade.

When you're on your deathbed, you won't be wishing that you'd spent more time at the office. But you will be wishing that you'd spent more time running. Because if you had, you wouldn't be on your deathbed.

XanaduStone

posted: 4/2/2007 at 9:23 PM

Quote from jEfFgObLuE on 4/2/2007 at 10:11 AM:

It will work sort-of retro. Apple's gonna offer a one-time shot to upgrade all your purchased EMI-music for $0.30 a song. So if you want to go DRM-free, you won't have to completely re-buy the song, just pay the difference...

Can't you just burn it on a CD and reimport it to get rid of the copy protection? Or does that diminish the sound quality in some way? (You seem to know a lot about it and I've always wondered).

jEfFgObLuE

More Cowbell!

posted: 4/2/2007 at 11:20 PM
modified: 4/3/2007 at 8:35 AM

Quote from XanaduStone on 4/2/2007 at 9:23 PM:

Can't you just burn it on a CD and reimport it to get rid of the copy protection? Or does that diminish the sound quality in some way?

Yeah, you lose a little quality doing the burn-n-rip because you're re-compressing a piece of music that was already compressed to begin with. If you re-import as a WAV, AIFF, or Apple Loslesss, you won't lose anything, but the file will be huge. Besides, the whole burn-n-rip technique is kind of pain. Though it is a good workaround in a pinch. Cheers, Jeff

When you're on your deathbed, you won't be wishing that you'd spent more time at the office. But you will be wishing that you'd spent more time running. Because if you had, you wouldn't be on your deathbed.

jEfFgObLuE

More Cowbell!

posted: 5/30/2007 at 2:52 PM
modified: 5/30/2007 at 2:53 PM

FYI, the high bit-rate DRM-free songs from EMI are now available on iTunes. It's called iTunes Plus They said they'd come out in May. Nothing like waiting for the last minute, eh? You have to download the latest version of iTunes to access. I only had 9 purchased tracks eligible for upgrade. But I sense I will buy more music online now that a lot of it is higher quality and DRM-free. Also, I look forward to buying more classical and jazz online, where you really can tell a difference between 128kbps and 256kbps files.

When you're on your deathbed, you won't be wishing that you'd spent more time at the office. But you will be wishing that you'd spent more time running. Because if you had, you wouldn't be on your deathbed.

shyrunner07

posted: 6/1/2007 at 5:31 PM

i have 66- all of which i lost in the great syncing snafu in april...which makes me wonder- if i were to click upgrade, would the files be redownloaded to my library, or would it just change the licensing to the tracks? I never did purchase one of those "I emptied my recycle bin but i changed my mind and really want my stuff back" restorers (though i should because i just know i will make the same mistake again and again...*not really much for learning lessons the first time*). However, hubby did bring home from work a nice roomy external h/d... Big grin

jEfFgObLuE

More Cowbell!

posted: 6/1/2007 at 5:40 PM
modified: 6/1/2007 at 5:55 PM

Quote from shyrunner07 on 6/1/2007 at 5:31 PM:

i have 66- all of which i lost in the great syncing snafu in april...which makes me wonder- if i were to click upgrade, would the files be redownloaded to my library, or would it just change the licensing to the tracks? I never did purchase one of those "I emptied my recycle bin but i changed my mind and really want my stuff back" restorers (though i should because i just know i will make the same mistake again and again...*not really much for learning lessons the first time*). However, hubby did bring home from work a nice roomy external h/d...

Good News! If you upgrade, you download all new tracks at $0.30 apiece (the price differential between the $0.99 you already paid, and the $1.29 price of the high bit-rate, DRM-free files). Big grin

One word of caution. The tracks are DRM-free -- there are no restrictions on how many computers they play on, or what music players they can play on (as long as the player supports AAC). But to discourage piracy, they encode the file with your username/email address. This means that if the file gets uploaded to P2P file-sharing service, the RIAA or some other entity can trace the file back to it's purchaser. No word if the old burn and re-rip technique strips this watermark.

When you're on your deathbed, you won't be wishing that you'd spent more time at the office. But you will be wishing that you'd spent more time running. Because if you had, you wouldn't be on your deathbed.

Apple to offer EMI tunes DRM-free (Read 1186 times)

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