The EMI-Apple Deal: It’s All Well And Good, But What Does It Mean For You?

EMI’s decision to do away with digital-rights management for its online catalog and Apple’s decision to carry DRM-free music on the iTunes store have been inspiring a lot of chatter around the blogosphere. But what does the announcement by Apple CEO Steve Jobs and EMI CEO Eric Nicoli (pictured above, with halos) mean for consumers, labels, and other digital-music stores? While we won’t see the results on a grand scale until next month–when iTunes is scheduled to put EMI’s unprotected files on sale–we have the answers to a few questions inspired by today’s news.

1. Is EMI crazy for doing this? No–for once, they’re actually ahead of the curve. Positioning DRM-free music as a premium product–with better encoding rates and higher per-track prices–has its risks, but they’ll likely pay off. After all, this move is one of the few times that a major label has actually acted as if it trusts consumers, and teaming up with the market leader in digital-music distribution is a signal that EMI wants to forge forward in terms of musical distribution. Sure, DRM-free files will make it slightly easier for a user to e-mail a copy of “Smile” to her friend who just went through a breakup, but we don’t see entire chunks of people running off to trade their recently purchased files. And those listeners who want to swap entire discographies through private BitTorrent networks will probably continue to do so, whether for reasons of frugality or out of desire for even higher-quality formats like FLAC.

2. Why didn’t rates for albums change? Apple has been getting a lot of flak for offering per-track downloads and taking a bite out of the album market. The EMI deal makes high-quality DRM-free albums standard on iTunes, and not changing a premium price for a premium offering is yet another way for the iTunes Store to encourage people to buy albums instead of cherry-picking songs, thus showing the major labels that they’re in at least one fight together. (See also the “Complete My Album” incentive offered to single-track buyers last week.)

3. What does this mean for consumers? Do they even care about what label an artist is on, or about DRM? People who want to pay for music (yes, there are still a few out there) will have even more incentive to buy EMI’s albums digitally, and consumers who were, in the past, stymied by attempts to move their iTunes-purchased music around–whether to different computers or to portable players that aren’t necessarily the iPod–will have a slightly easier time doing so now. (Even the Zune will be able to play the unprotected AACs offered by iTunes.) And again, the idea of a major label viewing a consumer as a trusted entity, as opposed to a potential target for lawsuits, should pay off in PR points, at the very least.

4. Are other labels going to follow suit? It makes sense that they would, although we’d expect indies to migrate to the DRM-free world more quickly than the majors. Many of them already distribute their music in unprotected format through services like eMusic and the forthcoming Other Music digital store. Hypebot today also mentioned rumblings from Universal Music Group about offering certain parts of its back catalog–including its classical offerings–without digital-rights protection. But even though Jobs has said that he expects half of iTunes’ catalog to be available without DRM by year’s end, we don’t see all four major labels moving to DRM-free downloads for at least another two years, if not longer.

5. What about other stores? So far, the UK store 7Digital has announced that it will offer restriction-free downloads at an even higher quality–although it’s clearly appealing to the demographic of Damon Albarn fans, as its entire DRM-free catalog at this point consists of The Good, The Bad, and The Queen. (UPDATE: A reader e-mailed us to let us know that 7Digital is actually run by EMI–which makes sense, given that Albarn’s outfit played the launch press conference announcing the DRM-lift.)

6. So when will I be able to buy those Beatles MP3s? Nicoli said today that Apple and EMI were “working on” getting the Beatles catalog–which will allegedly be remastered–to the iTunes Store’s shelves. If the Beatles show up on iTunes first, you’ll actually have to buy Beatles AACs. AAC stands for Advanced Audio Coding, and it’s the format that iTunes uses for its downloads; audiophiles aren’t completely sold on the quality of those files, though, so if you have extra-sensitive ears, you might want to wait until the remasters come to CD.

Earlier: EMI Goes DRM-Free, Says To Online Retail, “C’mon, Jump In”