EMI Rocks The Music Industry Boat

I've been keeping busy lately but there's no way I can put off this post any longer due to the changing news and criticism surrounding its initial release. EMI has planned to add non-DRM downloads all their songs sold on iTunes. Initially Steve jobs, who appeased the labels to follow through on this, was extremely happy. Now not only does Apple get a take from the 99 cent DRM songs but also the more expensive unrestricted files. What does this mean to consumers? Means that when you log into the iTunes Store, you will hanve a choice on some artists for now (Christina Aguliera among them) to purchase higher bit rate songs for $1.29, and even higher bit rate full albums (a whopping 256 kHz). Bets have been placed all around the industry as to who will be next to join in the DRM liberation. I personally do not know, but there seems to be an increasing amount of pressure to quickly follow suit. Nonetheless this will be a transfer of mediums like no other, in the fact that there is no real change in hardware necessary for buyers. Remember going from vinyl to 8 tracks to cassettes (or maybe you haven't yet...) I can safely bet the iTunes Store will be leading the unresitricted download market with 100% non-DRM songs by 2010. As for now, you can now buy all those Beatles albums free of DRM and playable anywhere any amount of times.