On April 2nd, 2007, the world’s largest independent music company, EMI, announced its decision to launch “free superior quality downloads”. The new downloads are said to cover the entire EMI digital repertoire and to be free of DRM (digital rights management) restrictions. EMI revolutionizes the market by being the first company to remove DRM restrictions on music downloads. The company CEO Eric Nicoli, announced, at a press conference at the company’s headquarters in London that EMI would continue selling its DRM-protected downloads together with the new DRM-free ones.

The press release on the breaking news says that the ratio behind the company decision is to answer the consumer demand for “high fidelity digital music” as well as to promote interoperability. Thus the statement: “EMI’s new DRM-free products will enable full interoperability of digital music across all devices and platforms”; in other words, the consumer will be able to listen the music download on a platform of his or her choice-home music systems, mobile phones or digital music players. The press release further announces that Apple iTunes is to be the first digital store to sell EMI products under these conditions.
To read the whole press release please click here