Hangt EMI DRM aan de wilgen?

Volgens de Wall Street Journal is EMI, de op twee na grootste muziekmaatschappij ter wereld, druk in gesprek met online retailers, om het verkopen van muziek DRM-vrij te maken.

Een paar dagen geleden brak Apple’s Steve Jobs al een lans voor DRM-vrije muziekverkoop, in zijn ‘Thoughts on Music’ manifest. Waarin hij ondermeer duidelijk maakte dat ruim 97% van de muziek op de inmiddels 90 miljoen verkochte iPods DRM-vrij is, en de muziekmaatschappijen sowieso al 90% van al hun muziek (offline) DRM-vrij verkopen:

(...) Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats. In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players. This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat. (...)

Why would the big four music companies agree to let Apple and others distribute their music without using DRM systems to protect it? The simplest answer is because DRMs haven’t worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy. Though the big four music companies require that all their music sold online be protected with DRMs, these same music companies continue to sell billions of CDs a year which contain completely unprotected music. That’s right! No DRM system was ever developed for the CD, so all the music distributed on CDs can be easily uploaded to the Internet, then (illegally) downloaded and played on any computer or player.

Gaan die muziekmaatschappijen dan nu eindelijk ‘het licht’ zien?