Apple is pushing its record label partners to sell DRM-free music at iTunes.
Apple sent letters to that effect to its record label partners Wednesday, according to the Apple-watchers over at MacRumors.
It should be no surprise, says Gartner analyst Mike McGuire. When Apple's Steve Jobs sent out his now-famous open letter suggesting the abandonment of DRM, he said half the music available at iTunes would be DRM-free by 2008.
So far only one label, EMI, has signed up to sell DRM-free songs at iTunes. "So now Jobs is out selling," Gartner's McGuire says.
Jobs is confident other labels will follow suit. "There are a lot of people in the other music companies who are very intrigued by it," he told Reuters Wednesday. "They're thinking very hard about it right now."
Smaller independent labels like the idea of DRM-free, but the majors remain hesitant. EMI is the third largest of the four major record label conglomerates, leaving three others to be persuaded: Vivendi's Universal Music Group, Sony BMG Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group.
Mitch Bainwol, CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), reiterated the major labels' love for DRM Thursday at a conference speech in Nashville. But he also left open the possibility of discussions on the matter.
EMI's move away from DRM might end up being a good thing for those of us whose MP3 players aren't made by Apple.
EMI's motivation for selling DRM-free music is to take a larger share of online music revenues, and there's no exclusivity in its agreement with Apple and iTunes. So EMI could easily (and probably will) sell DRM-free tracks on music services that compete with iTunes, like Microsoft's Zune Marketplace for instance.
If/when that happens, the other big labels will be under heavy pressure to follow.
