EMI and Apple rumoured to drop copyright protection

2 April 2007 10:00 GMT / By Stuart Miles

EMI and Apple have said they will be making a "BIG" announcement today at 1pm UK time at EMI's headquarters in London.

Although no details have been given as to what the announcement will centre around, rumours on the web have pinpointed it to two possibilities; The Beatles coming to iTunes or EMI announcing that it will offer DRM free music via the music store from Apple.

Newspapers from the Wall Street Journal to the Guardian believe that Eric Nicoli and Steve Jobs will announce the move of offering non-copyrighted songs.

According to the BBC it received an invite on Sunday where EMI said it was announcing an "exciting new digital offering".

The news follows Steve Jobs' open letter to the music industry asking for copyright protection software to be removed from download tracks.

According to The Wall Street Journal the group "In a major break with the music industry's longstanding antipiracy strategy, EMI Group PLC is set to announce today that it plans to sell significant amounts of its catalog without anticopying software, according to people familiar with the matter".

If true, it would mean customers of Apple's iTunes store would be able to play downloaded songs by Coldplay, Norah Jones and other top-selling artists free of the copying restrictions once imposed by their label.

"The decision would almost certainly force other major recording companies to follow suit", an industry insider told Pocket-lint.

The agreement is likely to cover nearly all of EMI's catalog, which also includes the likes of Rolling Stones, Gorillaz and Janet Jackson, however The Beatles, whose tracks aren't available online wouldn't as yet be included.

The move is also likely to mean that customers of EMI tracks would be able to transfer them to other MP3 players. Currently tracks bought on the Apple iTunes Store can only play on Apple's iPod player.

EMI has already tested the waters earlier this year by offering a single by Norah Jones for sale without DRM.

Other rumours online suggest that the announcement could be just to announce that The Beatles catalogue is being made available online for download.

The news would be there could be a top ten chart completely dominated by The Beatles following new rules by the official chart company announced at the beginning of the year. In the new rules, any track regardless of age could be considered for the chart position based on digital or CD sales.

Full tags

Audio, Online, Music downloads, Apple, EMI, Rumours