Chmielewski and Michelle Quinn, Times Staff Writers
Customers of Apple Inc.'s iTunes store will soon be able to play downloaded songs by the Rolling Stones, Norah Jones and other top-selling artists free of the copying restrictions once imposed by their label. EMI Group, the world's fourth-largest record label, and Apple, the biggest seller of digital music and players, announced a landmark deal today that would remove copying protections from songs starting in May.
The decision is likely to pressure other major recording companies to follow suit. The agreement covers nearly all of EMI's catalog, which also includes the likes of Coldplay, Gorillaz and Janet Jackson. There's at least one notable exception: the Beatles.
The surviving band members and their estates have yet to permit online sales of their songs. Songs without anti-piracy protection will cost $1.29, compared with the usual iTunes price of 99 cents, and feature higher sound quality, the companies said.
People who previously bought EMI songs through iTunes can upgrade them for 30 cents apiece. London-based EMI became the first of the four major record labels to heed Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs' call to sell songs free of the software designed to protect music against theft. Jobs has maintained that copying protections are ineffective in stemming piracy and only create hassles for consumers.
"EMI, which has historically been one of the more experimentation-friendly major labels, realized that that's the future," said Aram Sinnreich, a senior analyst with Radar Research. Consumers have long chafed at the restrictions placed on music purchased through iTunes and other online music stores. Record labels have insisted on attaching software "locks" to prevent unauthorized copying.
But the software Apple uses to achieve this is proprietary, and songs bought through the online store won't work with competing services or devices. That practice of linking iTunes with the iPod has drawn the scrutiny of European regulators, who say it limits buyer choice. "We think our customers are going to love this," Jobs said, adding that he expected to offer more than half of the songs in the iTunes library free of copying protection by the end of the year.
Some technologists and consumer advocates have argued that lifting the restrictions would give a boost to online music, which now generates about 15% of U.S. music sales.
Jobs acknowledged consumers' frustration in "Thoughts on Music," a manifesto he published on Apple's website in February. He noted that the music companies insist on anti-piracy measures for the songs sold online even though the vast majority of the music they sell is on CDs, which lack any copy protection. "If such requirements were removed, the music industry might experience an influx of new companies willing to invest in innovative new stores and players," Jobs wrote.
"This can only be seen as a positive by the music companies." As the man whose company's iPod player became the cornerstone of digital music, Jobs has tremendous clout. But Cupertino, Calif.
-based Apple, too, would be taking a risk by promoting such unfettered commerce. The company has become the dominant force in online music partly by fusing its online store to its devices. Some music industry executives said Jobs' call for them to drop anti-piracy protections was disingenuous.
If he really wanted to help consumers and protect the record labels, they said, Jobs could license Apple's copy protection software to rival companies. He has dismissed the idea. EMI had been in discussions with online stores for months about selling its songs without copying protection.
Some retailers balked at the size of the advance payment that the label demanded to compensate for the risk of releasing its music without anti-piracy software. "EMI and iTunes are once again teaming up to move the digital music industry forward by giving music fans higher quality audio that is virtually indistinguishable from the original recordings, with no usage restrictions on the music they love from their favorite artists," EMI Chief Executive Eric Nicoli said. Other labels have tested the idea.
For example, Universal Music Group released songs from teen heartthrob Jesse McCartney and French singer-composer Emilie Simon in the unprotected MP3 format to gauge the effect on overall sales. Sony BMG Music Entertainment did the same with a Jessica Simpson song. Online service eMusic.
com has sold more than 100 million tracks from independent labels without copying protections.
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