EMI to drop copy protection today

Music publisher EMI might become the first to offer some of its music via iTunes without copyright protection software.

Apple’s CEO, Steve Jobs is in London today and is expected to join EMI at a ‘special’ announcement which will see EMI become the first record publisher to ditch digital rights management (DRM) software on some of its music downloads.

There has been some speculation in recent weeks that Apple and EMI were finally going to offer The Beatles catalogue for download via iTunes but it now seems that getting rid of DRM on some music downloads may be the big news. If true, this could be the beginning of the end for the DRM and the start of people being able to purchase music online without any restrictions on what they do with it.

Steve Job’s stirred up a hornet’s nest earlier this year when he called for DRM to be scrapped, saying: "DRMs haven’t worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy".

Despite his call to the ‘big four’ music publishers - EMI, Sony BMG, Warner and Universal – only EMI has entertained the notion. Warner has been the most vocal about keeping it with chairman, Edgar Bronfman Jr, quoted as saying:

“We advocate the continued use of [DRM] in the protection of our and our artists' intellectual property. The notion that music does not deserve the same protections as software, television, films, video games, or other intellectual property, simply because there is an unprotected legacy product available in the physical world [the CD], is completely without logic or merit.”

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