[Harry Lavo]

"Jenn" wrote in message
...
Apple Unveils Higher Quality DRM-Free Music on the iTunes Store
DRM-Free Songs from EMI Available on iTunes for $1.29 in May
CUPERTINO, California Music¹s entire digital catalog of music will be
available for purchase
DRM-free (without digital rights management) from the iTunes® Store
(www.itunes.com) worldwide in May. DRM-free tracks from EMI will be
offered at higher quality 256 kbps AAC encoding, resulting in audio
quality indistinguishable from the original recording, for just $1.29
per song. In addition, iTunes customers will be able to easily upgrade
their entire library of all previously purchased EMI content to the
higher quality DRM-free versions for just 30 cents a song. iTunes will
continue to offer its entire catalog, currently over five million songs,
in the same versions as today128 kbps AAC encoding with DRM price of 99
cents per song, alongside DRM-free higher quality versions
when available.
³We are going to give iTunes customers a choice our songs for the same
99 cent price, or new DRM-free versions of the
same songs with even higher audio quality and the security of
interoperability for just 30 cents more,² said Steve Jobs, Apple¹s CEO.
³We think our customers are going to love this, and we expect to offer
more than half of the songs on iTunes in DRM-free versions by the end of
this year.²
³EMI and iTunes are once again teaming up to move the digital music
industry forward by giving music fans higher quality audio that is
virtually indistinguishable from the original recordings, with no usage
restrictions on the music they love from their favorite artists,² said
Eric Nicoli, CEO of EMI Group.
With DRM-free music from the EMI catalog, iTunes customers will have the
ability to download tracks from their favorite EMI artists without any
usage restrictions that limit the types of devices or number of
computers that purchased songs can be played on. DRM-free songs
purchased from the iTunes Store will be encoded in AAC at 256 kbps,
twice the current bit rate of 128 kbps, and will play on all iPods, Mac®
or Windows computers, Apple TVs and soon iPhones, as well as many other
digital music players.
iTunes will also offer customers a simple, one-click option to easily
upgrade their entire library of all previously purchased EMI content to
the higher quality DRM-free format for 30 cents a song. All EMI music
videos will also be available in DRM-free format with no change in price.

Well, I guess it is a step in the right direction. But it gets us back only
to a point just short of "CD Quality". Now how about a "super-premium" SACD
or DVD-A multi-channel" release?