Removal of DRM from EMI's Catalog

On 02/04/2007, Apple Inc. and EMI Music jointly announced that EMI’s entire digital catalog would be offered without Digital Rights Management on the iTunes Store, marking the first agreement between Apple and a major record label to distribute music without copy protection. The announcement was made during a press event in London featuring Apple CEO Steve Jobs and EMI Group CEO Eric Nicoli. The deal allowed customers to purchase songs that could be played on any compatible device, rather than being restricted to Apple authorized hardware. The DRM free tracks were introduced under the name iTunes Plus and were encoded in 256 kbps AAC format, doubling the bit rate of the standard 128 kbps files previously sold on iTunes. Apple stated that individual DRM free tracks from EMI would be priced at $1.29 in the United States, £0.99 in the United Kingdom, and €1.29 in Europe. Full albums from EMI were also made available without DRM and in higher quality, while album pricing remained unchanged. Apple also announced that customers who had previously purchased EMI tracks could upgrade to the DRM free versions for $0.30, 20 pence, or €0.30 per song depending on region. The agreement followed Steve Jobs’ open letter titled Thoughts on Music, published on 06/02/2007, in which he argued that removing DRM would improve interoperability and reduce restrictions on consumers. Apple said the EMI catalog without DRM would begin rolling out in May 2007 and would include both new releases and previously available titles. The move represented a shift in digital music distribution, as other major labels at the time continued to sell music with copy protection through online stores.