DRM-Free Songs: Good News for Music-Capable Cell Phones

Monday’s announcement by a major record label that it would begin selling high-quality music files without any copy protection bodes well for users of cell phones with MP3 players.

EMI Group announced Monday that in May it will start selling high-quality digital music files without digital-rights-management (DRM) restrictions features that limit how often a file can be copied or what devices it can be played back on.  EMI’s DRM-free songs will be sold for through Apple Inc.’s iTunes Music Store for $1.29 each, a minor premium above the 99-cent, DRM-protected songs now in the store.

The move is good news for owners of music-capable cell phones since while many, like those with iTunes software built in, support DRM-protected files, many do not. The new files will use 256 kbps AAC encoding, which offers superior sound quality than the 128 kbps AAC encoding used for the standard, DRM-protected files in the iTunes Music Store.  Last year EMI experimented with DRM-free files by releasing songs by Norah Jones, Relient K and Lily Allen in the DRM-free MP3 format.

According to EMI’s press release, the DRM-free files are being introduced “…in response to consumer demand for high fidelity digital music for use on home music systems, mobile phones and digital music players.”