EMI to Ditch DRM?

Eric Bangeman at Ars is reporting that music giant EMI is seriously considering allowing its music to be sold DRM-free:

Reports are surfacing that EMI is in negotiations with some of the leading music stores to offer a substantial portion of its music catalog without DRM, with an announcement due as early as today. Under one scenario, music stores like Napster, Real Rhapsody, and others would fork over sizable advance payments in exchange for the right to sell music as unprotected MP3s. Another industry source reports that EMI was also discussing the possibility of selling MP3s on MySpace using SnoCap.

All of the parties reportedly involved are remaining close-mouthed on whatever negotiations may be taking place, but the scuttlebutt is that the negotiations have been going on for months. Needless to say, any decision by one of the big four labels to make a sizable chunk of its music available for download sans DRM would be ground-breaking.

EMI has experimented with DRM-free music in the past. The most recent occurrence was in December 2006 when they gave Yahoo Music the green light to sell a single from Norah Jones and a couple of tracks from Reliant K as MP3s. Selling a large portion of its catalog as unprotected MP3s would put it at odds with the RIAA and other major labels, who firmly back the continued use of DRM. “Let me be clear. We advocate the continued use of DRM in the protection of our–and our artists’–intellectual property,” said Warner Music CEO Edgar Bronfman, Jr. during his company’s quarterly earnings call.

Here’s what I wrote back in 2004:

The bottom line is that I plan to continue buying my music on CDs and rippping them to MP3 for the foreseeable future. I would love to be able to purchased unencumbered MP3s online, but I have a feeling that it will take several years before someone whacks Apple and the RIAA with a big enough clue-by-four to make that happen. For now, they’re fighting the last battle, desperately trying to wish the peer-to-peer genie back in the bottle. When they realize how completely they lost that one, maybe they’ll give some serious thought to how they should treat those customers who do choose to buy their products legitimately.

And here’s a prediction: by 2020, musical DRM will look as quaint as the failed copy-protection schemes of old PC software in the 1980s look today.

That prediction is starting to look downright conservative.

SHARE: 2 comments