EMI mulls sales of unprotected songs

Music label is in talks to release a large portion of its music catalog for Web sales without technological protections against piracy, sources say.

The story "EMI mulls sales of unprotected songs" published February 8, 2007 at 7:45 AM is no longer available on CNET News.

Content from Reuters expires after 30 days.

[darmik2005]

to EMI

unprotect all songs ass soon as possible

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http://iphone.emigrantas.com - iPhone blog

[ubnyan]

Resistance is futile

Unfortunatelly any technology and efforts againts music(audio) piracy is a joke. Any sound can be copied to a computer and converted to an Mp3 or so thanks to various free music prgrams out there. Is very simple really - as long as you can "hear" it on any device you can "copy" it.

[Blito]

Unless Vita wraps it's claws around it

Doesn't Vista disable DRM stuff or just not play it in it's WMV?

Better then not to force MS to police the internet just get rid of 666-DRM

[umbrae]

EMI could be heroes of the digital age...

This is a smart move. The first label to understand its customer base and release DRM free music will gain tons of fan loyalty.

[Blito]

Why lossy?

I am still confused to why this debate is revolving around Lossy vs Lossless compression. Will it then be legal to copy music, like in the 1980s or will it just be DRM free?

Lossy compression, no matter how great the tech, still doesn't sound as good or authentic as WMV or other lossless compressions
I don't want to see the market flooded with lower quality MPS3s although Mp3s are very small in size and there far more realistic to copy.

Whatever the case I want to make copies legally so I can mix and match. If I'm paying $10/month for a service I don't want to pay extra for minor songs here and there if my service doesn't have it.

Basically I am paying for the service of musicnow.com to offer a spectacular website along with high quality streaming Lossless WMV format files not just for music but for the experience.

I do think floating MP3s might be more realistic because of their size but they have to go all the way or people will again revert to CD copying because of the better qulality

[thedreaming]

a very important point

The article did actually touch on a very important point: Audio CDs don't have any copy protection. Back before napster, the technology didn't exist to rip the music tracks and compress them, but when this technology was created, music piracy (which always existed) got a major boom.

Since we and they know that any form of protection will be removed by the end user anyway, why not just sell it unprotected at a reasonable price?

Paying retail price for a music cd I just downloaded off the internet isn't my idea of fair pricing.

[markusfarkus]

re: napster

Just a small correction - mp3 compression and file-sharing was around long before Napster. Napster just made it easier.

In my opinion, the record companies had plenty of time to get the ball rolling with online sales before Napster blew it all up.

[NWLB]

Downloaders of the world Rejoice

N/m.