Podcast Fresh

In less than a week, DRM-Free songs from EMI Music can now be purchased through iTunes at $1.29 each song. This deal between EMI and iTunes is a breakthrough because it now allows people to purchase higher quality music with no usage restrictions.

And because Apple said “with no usage restrictions” I think that this could also benefit podcasters who want to play or feature the songs of popular EMI artists like Robbie Williams, Corinne Bailey Rae, Lily Allen, Coldplay and Joss Stone in their podcast shows.

If you previously bought a DRM protected song from EMI, you have the option to convert it into DRM-free version by adding 30 cents for each song. iTunes also announced that they will continue offering songs encoded with DRM for the same price of 99 cents for every song.

The debate over digital rights management and how it should be regulated seems to be endless. But with the huge step forward of EMI and iTunes, they became one of the biggest players who first gave in to the demand of consumers for DRM-free music.

I just hope that this will have a significant impact for the music and entertainment industry to have our purchased multimedia content be played when we want it and how we want it.