Apple drops FairPlay DRM for Music from EMI through iTunes

Apple and the major music company EMI reached agreement on dropping Apple's digital rights management technology (DRM) called FairPlay on EMI's songs sold through the iTunes Store with a higher quality encoding, 256 kbps AAC. Those songs will cost $1.29, a 30-cent premium. All of EMI's music will be offered both as the standard 128 kpbs AAC encoding with DRM for 99-cents and as the high quality 256 kbps AAC encoding without DRM for $1.29, giving customers a choice.

This breakthrough agreement is consistent with Steve Jobs' open letter, Thoughts on Music, stating that Apple preferred to sell DRM-free music through its iTunes Store so that the music can be played on any music player just like a CD. In addition, the songs from EMI already purchased through iTunes for 99-cents can be upgraded automatically by iTunes to high quality 256 kbps AAC encoding and be DRM-free for 30-cents each.

The new choice will be available from the iTunes Store worldwide in May. Apple hopes to recruit other major music publishers to this new high quality/DRM-free model. [Bill Fox]