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[Mr ChriZ]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6516189.stm

[JimH]

EMI announced a more open policy for downloads.  No DRM.  WMA, MP3, or AAC and higher quality.

Apple will be the first service to use it.  $1.29 per track in the U.S.

The EMI press release is here:
http://www.emigroup.com/Press/2007/press18.htm

[glynor]

So.... They get to take our legal fair use rights away, and then sell them back to us for $0.30.  Yeah... Great.   

But... I thought DRM was about piracy!  Now it seems to be more about making extra money.  Hmmmmm....

EDIT: But, still, I must say...  Despite my skepticism on the motivation, this is certainly A Good Thing^TM.  I'm now willing to buy EMI tracks from the Apple iTunes store.  That is the first time I can say that I'm willing to buy something from the iTunes store.  256kbps AAC and DRM-free is good enough for me.  Ars Technica also did a write up on the story on Friday (with an addendum today).  Apparently it also includes EMI music videos going DRM free with no extra charge on them.

[park]

Does it mean that those aac files will now become taggable too? I remember hearing somewhere that the reason MC couldnt tag itunes files was because of the drm.

[benn600]

Now I want to see some hard evidence of their sales move.  I want to know it track sales (numbers) are going up or down since they are more expensive.  Will people buy one song and send it to all their friends?!  Sadly enough, I still think the legit teens who buy might be inclined to send it to their friends.  It's so easy now!  lol.  Count me out, I'm sticking with CDs.

[benn600]

That's so funny how Steve Jobs is in a t-shirt and jeans and all the other guys are in formal wear...
http://www.emigroup.com/Press/2007/press18.htm

[hit_ny]

So Jobs' blog on the headaches involved with patching hacked DRM is having an effect.

One of the big five has gone DRM-less, course they charge little more for the favour.

If sales don't change the other 4 say, DRM or not makes no diff.

Don't think that will happen. Apart from the other 4, indie lables have been DRM-less for long time now.

[john h]

I have avoided Itunes music because of the difficulty in switching formats, as I prefer FLAC. 

Does this announcement mean that it will be easier to change the format of these tracks, ie, without messing around with all the directshow filters and all that stuff?  If so, I may actually be buying some music!!

[KingSparta]

That's so funny how Steve Jobs is in a t-shirt and jeans and all the other guys are in formal wear...
http://www.emigroup.com/Press/2007/press18.htm

That's Actually Called Business Casual

Jobs Is Dressed As "Come As You Are", I prefer The Shorts, Sandals And T-Shirt Mode, But for some reason they like to see me with a tie on when I go to work and not a polo shirt.

On Saturday I can get away with the shorts and flip-Flops because I keep the door locked or I put my secretary in charge as I do my shopping at Best-Buy, wal-mart etc....

[benn600]

it's because Steve Jobs is important enough to not have to wear formal wear...he's supposed to be "hip," as requested by the Apple marketing department

lol.  Yea, let's convert the downloaded tracks to flac.  Good idea!

[hit_ny]

Will people buy one song and send it to all their friends?!  Sadly enough, I still think the legit teens who buy might be inclined to send it to their friends.  It's so easy now! 

So they remove DRM, but is that it ?..seems almost too good to be true.

How about watermarking ?
It isn't comfirmed that this is indeed happening, just speculating as its technically feasible to do and could be just enough of a reason to remove drm in the first place.

Some sort of identifier placed on the track so if it ever finds its way to the wild, they can idenitfy, exactly who bought it when and from where. Would this be a deterrent ? If they do find stuff, it does not directly follow that the buyer intentionally spread it, but there is now a kind of trail.

Don't think they legally have to tell anyone that watermarks are present as it won't make any diff to the sound and won't affect playabilty on any machine. The precedent i'm thinking of is the way m$ office embeds info about the pc that was used to create the document, this info was used to convict a m$ office virus writer a few years back.

[bspachman]

Does it mean that those aac files will now become taggable too? I remember hearing somewhere that the reason MC couldnt tag itunes files was because of the drm.

No. MC still can't tag AAC files. It can only read existing tags.

brad

[thenoob1]

But at the end it's stll nuts. Look you pay 1.29$ for a track. A normal Cd has around 10 tracks --> the price for the Cd around 11$ - 13$. So you get LOSSLESS music with CD and COVER and a CASE for less or the same money. So when they do such things the have to offer lossless quality too.

tn1

[benn600]

I get CDs for $6 on YourMusic...they have a huge selection...I recommend it.  But they are increasing the price to $7 to I'm emptying my queue of cds I want a few days before the price increase.  New customers get $7 each unfortunately...but that's still less than Best Buy or Walmart!  They don't have everything but this increase might mean they can have some of the more pricey and newer titles.

[glynor]

But at the end it's stll nuts. Look you pay 1.29$ for a track. A normal Cd has around 10 tracks --> the price for the Cd around 11$ - 13$. So you get LOSSLESS music with CD and COVER and a CASE for less or the same money. So when they do such things the have to offer lossless quality too.

Yeah... But I don't want a CD with a cover and a case.  That's just extra packaging using extra oil (for the plastic) and trees (for the paper) that I don't need or want.  I'm just going to lose it or throw it away anyhow.  Plus, for me (and millions upon millions of other consumers) my closest "good" record store is now about a 45 minute drive away.  Sure, there's a local chain store, but they don't carry very much past Britney Spears's latest and I have slightly eclectic taste (and they certainly don't have those bargain prices you quoted).  Digital downloads let me shop in my underwear at 3am from my house, and still (unlike Amazon) provides instant gratification.  Plus...

How many major label releases are worth buying a full CD, when you can buy them one track at a time?  Buying a full CD for $17 (and most of newer releases are still in the $15.99-16.99 range at Amazon) compared to the 4 tracks that are worth buying on the CD at $5.20 is called a value to me.  Sure.... lossless is technically better, but my ears can't hear the difference in a blind test between a FLAC/APE/WAV and a 256kbps AAC (as long as it's been encoded properly).  That's good enough quality for 99.99% of the people listening, I'd guess, and it takes up far less space (and downloads much quicker).

[jgreen]

As I understand it, these non-DRM tracks will be initially released to itunes as AAC, but eventually to all sell-point services, in their accustomed format.  So my question is, at the 256 kbps compression, which format will offer the fullest audio--WMA, MP3, or AAC?

[Mr ChriZ]

How many major label releases are worth buying a full CD, when you can buy them one track at a time?  Buying a full CD for $17 (and most of newer releases are still in the $15.99-16.99 range at Amazon) compared to the 4 tracks that are worth buying on the CD at $5.20 is called a value to me.

I don't get on with buying/aquiring single tracks at a time,
because before long your audio collection starts looking
like 10% of many jigsaw puzzles all thrown in together, and the only way you can listen to your
music is one track at a time, or to spend hours creating playlists.  It's all to time consuming.
I much prefer just sticking an album on, or even a few albums on, even if it means sometimes
you end up listening to some not so good tracks.

[glynor]

Different people listen to music in different ways.  I do sometimes listen to entire albums the whole way through, but only when they are really good albums that are designed to be listened to in that manner (classical, Pink Floyd, radiohead, etc).  Otherwise, I almost always have MC set to "shuffle" mode and playing one of my predefined "Auto Smartlists" (I build them inside view schemes, but same difference) like a radio station.

For DJ-ing, I sometimes have to acquire songs that I otherwise probably wouldn't want to own.  I certainly don't want to spend $16 to go out and buy a full Ludacris album because I need to have the song "Runaway Love" that I otherwise probably wouldn't even listen to ever on my own (but would get requested about a thousand times in certain DJ-ing situations).

[MadJewDisaster]

~~~~~~~~~That's just extra packaging using extra oil (for the plastic) and trees (for the paper~~~~~

Your computer , hard drives, seat,electricity, soundcard do not need any composent- no oil , no metal , nothing- to be built ? They auto-disolve in the air when out of use ?

[glynor]

Nope.... But I use them.  The CD packaging is extraneous.  I'm not saying that it's right for everyone, just that it would (finally) work for me.  I wouldn't even consider using a download service that included DRM before because of ease-of-use and political concerns.  Now, I will.

[DWAnderson]

But at the end it's stll nuts. Look you pay 1.29$ for a track. A normal Cd has around 10 tracks --> the price for the Cd around 11$ - 13$. So you get LOSSLESS music with CD and COVER and a CASE for less or the same money. So when they do such things the have to offer lossless quality too.

I understand that the price from iTunes for albums without DRM will still be $9.99-- the same as for albums with DRM.

[benn600]

I keep hearing...my ears aren't good enough.  Let's just understand flac (lossless) is better and best and only go for it from now on.  Can lossy support be removed from Media Center, please?

[john h]

Let's assume that I want to buy the non-DRM songs from ITunes and continue to play them on MC12. 

Will MC12 play the AAC (is it the same as .m4a) formats without downloading/installing a program that makes the files actually play in Itunes/RealPlayer?

Is there a way that MC can convert the AAC files to something that works with MC (like FLAC or APE)?

I'm with Glynor, by the way.  Add me to the list of people who will pay a little bit more to get non-DRM tracks and albums while shopping from home, instantly.  If this will work with MC, sign me up as it's been what I've been waiting for.  I've stuck it out with Emusic for a while, even though they don't have all the artists I want, because I get a decent quality file that will play on everything I buy in the future and I will own forever.  I'm 38 years old and not interested in file sharing.  I don't need to own the actual CDs.  Just let me search, preview, buy, keep, and use--and make it easy! 

I'm also still amazed at the number of folks who use MC and still listen to only entire CDs.  I'm not critical, as music is very personal, and that's what's great about it.  But what makes MC so amazing to me is to take all the music you like, spend a little time tagging and creating genres/playlists/smartlists, and create these little radio stations designed just for you for every possible situation.  Sometimes I can't go to bed, because the playlists keep serving up songs I haven't heard in years and I want to see what comes next...

[johnnyboy]

The real reason to want lossless from these music stores isn't really so you can tell the difference when listening (not for 95% of people with their hearing abilities and the way they listen to music), its so you can convert your music to whatever formats you want from that original track that you own.

When you get a CD you have one perfect copy you can do whatever you want with - make into low quality mp3s for your mp3 player, make into lossless for your $5000 music system, make into high quality mp3's for your home listening on your computer, etc.

Currently you get a DRM protected track that is lossy so you cant convert it at all (in theory) to any other format for any other purpose. Once the DRM is removed you can then easily convert to the other formats for the other uses BUT if it's lossy, you're going to be loosing even more quality on a track that has already lost quality every time you convert again.

That's why you want a master perfect quality track to begin with - the same way movie studio's keep all their original content.

Great article:
http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/news/2007/04/emi_business0403

Gives another view point as to why EMI did it other than because they wanted to lead the way and cared.

[benn600]

And...when people get the higher quality versions from iTunes, suddenly they'll be extremely upset that their Nano will only hold HALF the number of songs.  They're gonna get upset quickly.  unless they don't have many songs.  I like the ability to change my encode quality at any time I want and then after a resync (lol...5-8 hours, overnight), I have more or less space and no extra loss of quality than the simple, single encode (down).

[datdude]

The real reason to want lossless from these music stores isn't really so you can tell the difference when listening (not for 95% of people with their hearing abilities and the way they listen to music), its so you can convert your music to whatever formats you want from that original track that you own.

When you get a CD you have one perfect copy you can do whatever you want with - make into low quality mp3s for your mp3 player, make into lossless for your $5000 music system, make into high quality mp3's for your home listening on your computer, etc.

Currently you get a DRM protected track that is lossy so you cant convert it at all (in theory) to any other format for any other purpose. Once the DRM is removed you can then easily convert to the other formats for the other uses BUT if it's lossy, you're going to be loosing even more quality on a track that has already lost quality every time you convert again.

That's why you want a master perfect quality track to begin with - the same way movie studio's keep all their original content.

Great article:
http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/news/2007/04/emi_business0403

Gives another view point as to why EMI did it other than because they wanted to lead the way and cared.

I have converted wma to mp3 and FLAC to MP3 and didn't notice a difference in any of those scenarios even just playing pure flac with a $2k system.  Maybe I have bad ears.

[datdude]

Ultimately what is going to get me to buy more music is NEW better music. With 8k songs there's not a lot of room for addition unless I want to only listen to new music which needs to be really different and good to get my attention.

[hit_ny]

That's why you want a master perfect quality track to begin with - the same way movie studio's keep all their original content.

Master perfect exists only in the label studios vaults, i'm told there is quite a bit of loss going from that master, via mixing decks to the CD you own finally.

[thenoob1]

No, I've no problem with lossy formats at all, after mp3 160kbits I can't hear any difference (maybe with classic music). But why should I download m4a? I don't have a ipod, my favorit player Mc12 has not that good aac support (no tagging, converting)... and when I convert a 256 aac to a 160 kbit mp3 I tell you, when you listen carefully, you can hear a bit of difference. I only mean you pay 1,30$. for the song. That's a lot of many. It would be cool if one can download lossy (less date) or lossless more data for the libary.

tn1

[glynor]

Master perfect exists only in the label studios vaults, i'm told there is quite a bit of loss going from that master, via mixing decks to the CD you own finally.

Right, and sound studios typically master in 24-bit/96khz format, and then the CDs are downsampled to 16-bit/44.1khz.

If you are really concerned, you can always just convert the 256kbps AAC files to APE/FLAC when you get them.  Once they're in lossless format, there's no further generational loss if you modify them further.  Lossless is lossless.

I've seen plenty of controlled, blind sound tests done on high-end audiophile equipment.  Can you tell the difference between a 128kbps MP3 and a FLAC/APE/WAV file?  Sure!  Can you tell the difference between a 256kbps AAC and the original?  Assuming that the test is fair and the AAC was encoded properly, I'd say the chances are slim-to-none.  Maybe there's like 4 guys in the world, with perfect hearing and perfect ears that can tell the difference (and even then only with specially constructed test files designed to expose the flaws in the compression format), but for the rest of us that's high enough quality to be transparent.

And if it sounds the same, and it isn't DRM-ed and locked down, and it takes less space and is quicker to download (and it's what 99.99% of users will want for their iPods)... I don't really see a downside!

Wow... It's been a really, really long time since I've defended any action by a RIAA company.  Now, we just need to get them to stop suing dead people and stomping on bunnies and whatnot.   

[InflatableMouse]

...
I've seen plenty of controlled, blind sound tests done on high-end audiophile equipment.  Can you tell the difference between a 128kbps MP3 and a FLAC/APE/WAV file?  Sure!  Can you tell the difference between a 256kbps AAC and the original?  Assuming that the test is fair and the AAC was encoded properly, I'd say the chances are slim-to-none.  Maybe there's like 4 guys in the world, with perfect hearing and perfect ears that can tell the difference (and even then only with specially constructed test files designed to expose the flaws in the compression format), but for the rest of us that's high enough quality to be transparent.
...

Let me chime in here, I won't call my self an audiophile and I don't like being called one. I have GOOD ears and I have different "audiophile" setups at my disposal. I have subjected myself and others to ABX tests and in short, even the best ears are NOT able to distinguish lame -V2 from the original. From 10 samples in 8 runs lame -V 4 was picked out twice by 2 people but not on sound quality but on sound stage. Dunno about AAC but I'll bet its similar or the same. There is no need for lossless, really. If thats what you want order a CD. If its only one or 2 songs you want, accept its lossy, you won't hear it anyway unless you are one of those 4 unique persons in the world and then you will find it important enough to order a CD for 2 songs.

Slightly offtopic. People sometimes are really defensive on 24/96 or even higher, claiming to be able to hear the difference between their audio DVD or HDCD and the "regular" CD. Well I got news for you, it's because there IS a difference. 24/96 sources are almost always remastered or otherwise "enhanced" to justify the higher bitrates. It's called "marketing", you "need" these bitrates they'll make sure of it. These marketing techniques are so that "most" people find them better sounding then their CD versions and contribute the improvement to the higher bitrates. Truth is that if the 24/96 is downmixed to CD they won't hear the difference.

My 2 cents .. 

[thenoob1]

If you are really concerned, you can always just convert the 256kbps AAC files to APE/FLAC when you get them.  Once they're in lossless format, there's no further generational loss if you modify them further.  Lossless is lossless.

--> sorry but this makes no sense. When I convert a 64 bit mp3 to lossless ahm.....yes it sounds like the CD. Cool. But you're right. You don't here a difference with this bitrate. When I've a lossless format it's always lossless, that's clear. But when you encode aac to mp3, ogg, etc you lose quality. This is because the use other algorithm to find out parts, the can cut off. So you have an aac and then you use mp3 to cut off parts off an already compressed audio track. The problem: the mp3 converter doesn´t know which parts are already cut to the ground. So when he cuts away again.... you have for example some parts in classics, were you can here this very good. There is no problem with aac, mp3 itself, but all together make mostly something bad.
I heard that ogg is the best codec for such things. So ogg to mp3 gives the best result.

Have a nice day

tn1

OT: In former times people bought 128kbit wmas --> could one tell the difference?

[tcman41]

The record labels have been keeping the price of cd's artifically high for years and this is just another prime example, at $1.30 a track and a modern day disc averaging 14 tracks that comes out to $18 a cd, complete rubbish.

I read somewhere that the true price of making a cd is somewhere around $2.50 but but the time it goes through 8 middle man on the way to the store it ends up costing an arm & a leg.

Give us drm free music at a fair price, until then it is all rubbish.

And another ring out to all those so-called audiophiles who spend most of their true time listening to music either on their mp3 player at the gym , in the car or down in their basements on crap systems bought at best buy, go freakin jump. In all those cases high cost so-called audiphile files are worthless, one would never tell the difference in those instances.

TC 

[glynor]

--> sorry but this makes no sense.

That's because you completely misunderstood my point.

Yes.  If you transcode from one lossy format to another there is a quality degradation above and beyond what happens when you convert from a lossless copy to the lossy format, due to rounding errors.  So, going from AAC --> MP3, or MP3 --> AAC, would be bad.  However, when you transcode from a lossy format to a lossless format (eg: AAC --> FLAC, or MP3 --> APE) is another story entirely.  Assuming your encoder doesn't stink, that shouldn't further degrade the quality than it already has been degraded from the initial conversion to a lossy format.  Once you have it in FLAC/APE/WAV it will not suffer further "extra" degradation due to subsequent format conversions (as long as you always start the process using the lossless copy).

Will it sound "as perfect" as starting with a lossless format originally?  Well... That would depend on the original lossy source.  My point was that for a 256kbps AAC that it might as well be a lossless format because no human being can actually tell the difference.  The only concern is rounding errors, which don't happen if you use a lossless intermediary format (and actually don't happen with most smart encoders if I understand correctly).

Let me chime in here, I won't call my self an audiophile and I don't like being called one. I have GOOD ears and I have different "audiophile" setups at my disposal. I have subjected myself and others to ABX tests and in short, even the best ears are NOT able to distinguish lame -V2 from the original. From 10 samples in 8 runs lame -V 4 was picked out twice by 2 people but not on sound quality but on sound stage. Dunno about AAC but I'll bet its similar or the same. There is no need for lossless, really. If thats what you want order a CD. If its only one or 2 songs you want, accept its lossy, you won't hear it anyway unless you are one of those 4 unique persons in the world and then you will find it important enough to order a CD for 2 songs.

I know, and I agree completely.   The only reason I said "there might be 4 guys" was to try to side-step the whole "lossless is technically better" argument a bit by admitting that maybe there are some super-human people somewhere out there with super-hearing that can really tell the difference in a blind test.  For the other 4 billion of us, LAME -v2 or 256kbps AAC is good enough.

[johnnyboy]

I'm not saying I can hear the difference because I dont believe for a minute under my usual listening conditions that I could, I'm just saying for a fee that high ($1.29 a track or whatever it is) they owe us lossless if we want it.

They should just take a leaf out of [web site removed].com's website and give it to us in whatever format we want (lossy or lossless) , I'm paying enough at that price to more than cover any additional bandwidth costs or hassle.

[benn600]

Who removed the web site?

Even if you get lossless, I would be worried about potentially losing the files.  With CDs, I have a backup...emergency only, lol.  I really don't want to even consider having to re-rip because I carefully check the text, etc.

[TheLongshot]

The main reason to do lossless, in my eyes, is for archival and transcoding purposes.  I'd be perfectly happy listening to 192 MP3s, but for some purposes, I might need a song at a lower bitrate or in a different format.  That's where having a lossless source comes in handy.  I'm also thinking forward into the future, when some formats go by the wayside and I need to convert to another format.  At least with FLAC, I know that I probably will find some way to read the format.

[thenoob1]

The main reason to do lossless, in my eyes, is for archival and transcoding purposes.  I'd be perfectly happy listening to 192 MP3s, but for some purposes, I might need a song at a lower bitrate or in a different format.  That's where having a lossless source comes in handy.  I'm also thinking forward into the future, when some formats go by the wayside and I need to convert to another format.  At least with FLAC, I know that I probably will find some way to read the format.

Yeah, that's exactly my point.

[glynor]

I'm not saying I can hear the difference because I dont believe for a minute under my usual listening conditions that I could, I'm just saying for a fee that high ($1.29 a track or whatever it is) they owe us lossless if we want it.

I don't know that they owe us anything, but I certainly wouldn't vote against the option to choose lossless.  So... I completely agree with you there!

I can see it from Apple's point of view as well though... More choices can sometimes confuse the users and lead to additional support calls (and therefore more cost).  I'm sure they're already going to get calls from people asking "what one should I choose?"  Not to mention the additional time and effort that would be required to provide a massive library of lossless files (which would certainly be in the M4A format, not FLAC anyway) for relatively minimal gain.  What percentage of users do you think would choose lossless if given the choice?  I doubt it'd be very high, but who knows.

[runemail]

This is great news, same price and better quality with no DRM.

This is also good as it pushes people to by complete albums with the higher prices for single tracks.

Its still a bit expensive, and i wish they included lossless as an option.

However EMI claimed other online stores is also going to sell DRM-free music in mp3, I wonder what the price and quality will be like.

This really puts the knife on Microsofts throat. They really need to do something, and fast. Cause right now their wma/DRM dream is going nowhere.

In the last year/6months Apple released the iPhone, "killed" DRM, increased sound-quality on iTMS and they are probably about to release next gen ipods this fall(wide-touchscreen?).

The only thing MS did was to ridicule themselves with "the Zune" (now in new and exiting colors!) and completly mess up their own standards (playsforsure?).

[glynor]

The only thing MS did was to ridicule themselves with "the Zune" (now in new and exiting colors!) and completly mess up their own standards (playsforsure?).

I think you meant "exciting", but actually the Freudian slip of "exiting" is also appropriate.  At least the Zune should be exiting.  It probably won't though.  Microsoft never intends or expects to dominate a new market with their first-gen product.  Look at the history...

XBox, Word, Excel, NT Server, etc, etc, etc...

[park]

So what's to stop MC from completely supporting drm-less aac (m4a) then? Does it still need to be licensed? Is that cost prohibitive?

[benn600]

So you want to buy music through iTunes and manage it with MC?  Perhaps J River could reverse engineer iTunes (lol) and create the iTunes store right in MC!  lol.  Wouldn't that be the day

[hit_ny]

You can see here, how to find your personal info that's embedded when you get stuff from iTunes.

seems its for both, with & without DRM music.

courtesy of Ars