Over at Techcrunch the word was that April 2nd would be the day to remember for music industry, this day bears comparisons to the day Google opened the cheque book for Youtube and changed the face of online video.
EMI are going DRM-free, it is a lovely thought and we at 7digital have a smile from ear to ear.
From the announcement (and most news press stories) you were lead to believe the deal was an exclusive between Apple & EMI – not true. As soon as EMI CEO Eric Nicoli made the announcement 7digital went live with the first high quality 320kbps MP3 music from The Good, the Bad & the Queen.
The other revelation was that the world leading iTunes music store would sell EMI music in their AAC format which did not do much for the interoperability debate. On the positive side, the announcement meant that competing download stores could finally sell EMI content in MP3 which meant music files are now be compatible with all of the 100 million iPods out there.
The giant quality leap from iTunes current 128kbps DRM tracks to unprotected 256kbps is very average but great news for other download stores, at 7digital we can now sell these unprotected files in 320kbps – a much higher quality.
Pricing was the other hot topic, should consumers pay a higher price for a premium quality track? Does the artist see any extra from this increased cost? These questions will be debated for some time. There is no time to dwell over this dilemma, it is time to move forward and encourage the other major labels to join the DRM free party.
Not only has EMI has taken the bold move to save the spiralling music industry, they have also broken the iTunes fixed pricing model, a feat that major labels have forever tried to do. Winning the battle of iTunes fixed pricing should make the other labels lick their lips at the thought of generating more revenue for zero cost.
The talk now is for iTunes to become a subscription model. I personally am not a sucker for subscription models and I am yet to be convinced subscription is the way forward.
It has taken five years for iTunes to ooze a little flexibility, could it be that iTunes are cracking under the pressure from labels and governments throughout the world?
Peter Davias Marketing Manager
Contact me: peter.davias (at) 7digital (dot) com
Posted by 7digital 
