DRM free music from EMI a price hike by stealth

Stan Beer
Wednesday, 04 April 2007 04:04

Opinion and Analysis

The bold move by EMI to make all of its music available online DRM free is a long overdue step in the right direction. However, why will consumers pay extra for something that should be theirs by right?

Both Apple and EMI made all the right noises earlier this week when they made their joint announcement that iTunes would provide a DRM free option for all EMI music available at the online store. However, charging consumers 30% more for that option amounts to nothing more than a massive price hike by stealth.

No doubt both EMI and Apple would defend the US$1.29 charge for DRM free music by claiming that it is necessary to protect their markets. After all, iTunes users might download tracks to their Sony Walkmans and other non iPod devices and, as far as EMI is concerned, they might copy tracks to....well whatever they've been copying them to.

In addition, EMI will encode DRM free tracks at a higher bit rate than ordinary copy protected tracks, giving users higher quality sound reproduction than what they've been getting up until now. Is it impertinent to ask EMI why users should pay extra for the sort of sound quality they should have been getting in the first place?

It is no secret that, as far as online music is concerned at least, DRM has been an abysmal failure. Only a tiny fraction of the music sitting on iPods is from iTunes and, while the Apple music store dominates the legal music downloads market, it is dwarfed by the volume downloaded from illegal sites. In addition, DRM cracking software continues to proliferate.

It is also no secret that music companies have been pressing Apple to raise its iTunes music prices. Spearheaded by Steve Jobs, Apple has resisted price hikes while publicly calling for lifting of DRM restrictions.

The new move by EMI would seem to provide a solution for both Apple and the record companies. However, for consumers all it offers is an acknowledgement that the product they've been paying for up until now is inferior and, if they want the real thing, they'll have to pay more.

Neither Apple nor EMI should be surprised if most consumers say thanks but no thanks.