Prompt's TechBlog

EMI has broken rank had said it will start selling its back catalogue online without any copying restrictions. That doesn't mean you're allowed to pirate it: just that you'll gain the right to use the music you buy on virtually any music player, and that you'll be trusted not to share it.

For a long time, downloads have seemed pretty poor value. In the UK, iTunes charges 79p per song (with deals on albums), to buy a track that you don't ultimately control. If you want to hear it, you're forced to either buy an Apple device to play it back on (and what happens in ten years if they're no longer available?) or you have to kludge a lower quality version by burning to CD and re-ripping. Given that you can buy CDs for a tenner nowadays, and often a fiver, the price of downloads seems expensive.

So full credit to Apple, whose iTunes store will be the first to start selling EMI's unprotected catalogue. This move breaks Apple's stranglehold over the hardware used to play music it sells, and will create a more competitive market.

Songs will be provided at higher quality (256kbps instead of 128kbps) and at the same price as protected tracks if you buy a whole album. Individual songs, though, will cost 20p more per track. That's being couched by EMI as the cost of additional quality, but it's probably got more to do with defending the CD market and protecting Apple's DRM sales, given that album costs are unchanged.

One reason CD sales are underperforming is that people don't have to buy filler any more. By making single songs 25% more expensive to buy (even before any discounts for buying a whole album), EMI will encourage more people who are picking and choosing highlights to spend a few quid more for the whole album. Apple will also ensure there continues to be a market for its DRM-protected tracks. In the long run, if all tracks are sold without DRM at 99p, Apple's iPod will be the only player with a 'discount' 79p option to buy copy-protected music.

It's remarkable that one of the music industry's major labels is taking this step, and we hope that others will follow. I can see my first iTunes purchase in the not too distant future. I already know what it is: there's an album on Mute (now owned by EMI) that I've been wanting to buy, but which was only available with DRM. Once that goes, I'm there.