This is the good bit: "making all of its digital repertoire available at a much higher sound quality than existing downloads and free of digital rights management (DRM) restrictions". That *all* is a good sign; you'll be able to buy *any* EMI music DRM-free; you just have to pay more for it. That's fair enough.

I think that second quote means that the Zune marketplace won't receive DRM-free content because:
a) It's subscription-based,
b) the Zune allows music sharing.

Seems like Apple may have stipulated (or at least supported this decision) to stop the Zune marketplace from receiving DRM-free content.

This is incredible. Lots of "1st"s here. 1st time The Cash Cows, I mean, The Beatles will be on iTunes. 1st time iTunes will finally offer CD quality music. 1st non-DRM of a major record label, esp on iTunes.

It's now time for the vocal anti-DRM people to put their money where their mouth is.

Nevermind about The Beatles part. I ought to have read more closely. It was specifically excluded from the deal.

The real caveat is that it will cost $1.29
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/04/02itunes.html

$1.29 sounds about right to me.

It's a great move. Possibly the downloads will be individually watermarked though – that may be EMI's way to discourage unpaid sharing.

but that would mean they would have to lock the music to one specific format...which is one of the main issues with DRM in the first place. Many people who want DRM free (random comment to bypass filter-this is the first time I've run into that) music (aside from those who want to "share with friends") want it so that they can listen to it on a generic mp3 player rather than needing an ipod to play itunes songs, or to sacrifice quality by burning it to a cd then ripping it back to mp3 (which I believe itunes lets you do)

elyk, EMI has already said that the music will be sold in a wide range for formats. You already don't need an iPod, because many other players (including Microsoft's Zune) will play the un-DRMd AAC files that iTunes is now selling.

Equally, there's no technical difficulty watermarking non-DRM files. There are plenty of watermarking schemes that survive format changes. For example, if you have some inaudible subsonic pulses whose intervals are related by square numbers (9, 16, 25, 36 etc) this will survive format changes, volume changes, speed changes etc. You choose which square numbers are encoded, in order to link the file to the purchaser.

I'm with elyk on this – if they're stripping the DRM, then they should also lose the proprietary AAC format and get back to MP3. Granted, AAC files feature better compression, but they do so at the expense of compatability.