Top Digital News in the Music Business

The Death of DRM: Apple and EMI Lead the Charge

After Steve Jobs of Apple Computers announced his mission to abandon Digital Rights Managements (DRM) in early February, the future of digital copyright protection was further opened up by EMI Group. As a major music company, EMI was reported by the Wall Street Journal to be moving forward with dismantling DRM protection on their MP3s for sale at online retailers. Come May, Apple announced that the EMI music catalog will be DRM-free in their iTunes store.

EMI's initial move came just days after Steve Jobs shook up the music industry by saying that DRM was limiting digital sales, especially with Apple's iTunes. The Apple iTunes player uses DRM so MP3s can only be played through an iPod or iTunes desktop player. Jobs sees a greater potential in allowing any type of digital player access to the MP3s in Apple's download collection. For this to work, all major record labels need to allow their MP3 music to be played without DRM protection. While there are still many opponents at both sides of the digital download debate, Apple and EMI are positioned to influence how the industry reacts.

This news comes just months after Apple's competitor, Microsoft, released their new MP3 player, The Zune. Like all other players besides the iPod, The Zune would not be able to play downloads from iTunes until Apple gets more labels to abandon DRM.

Indie vs. Major in the Digital Download Arena

Indie trade groups from several countries recently joined the non-profit licensing group Merlin to arrange deals with online retailers for downloads. The collective arrangement of Indie labels will compete directly with the major record labels in the download and mobile arena. While independent labels make up about 80 percent of all new music released into markets, only 30 percent of the revenue is made by Indie labels.