here's the press release link:
http://www.emigroup.com/Press/2007/press18.htm

I must congratulate EMI for this brave move. At last someone with good sense! I hope others follow. Better quality, DRM-free content is the only way we can have a truly interoperable market, and convince people to buy music instead of copying it. Piracy will always be an issue, but this move will make more people look at the industry differently.

DRM-free 192 and 160 bps tracks are available from Russian download services for 11 cents each. EMI deserves credit for this move, but the price is still too high when compared to 11 cents ... or free.

You can buy stolen goods for a fraction of the cost of legit goods, yes, we know. You can also make more money selling drugs than working at many legitimate jobs. And your point is?

People are seriuos comparing illegal things to the cost of legals things. I can get get every moive and song free, but I'm not going to compare it the price of something i have to pay for. I think the price is very low to me. I was expecting $2 each. I know people would would pay the extra $.30 just for the extra bit rate.

You can get DRM-free mp3's from emusic.com at about 25 cents/song. This is completely legitimate.

iTunes is a service for the rich with significant disposable income. The rest of us, unfortunately, don't have such luxury.

"There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part, you can't even passively take part, and you've got to put your bodies on the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop! And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all! - Mario Savio, 1964

The russians are paying virtually 0 royalties to the artists. Do you actually think that a band is going to sell you an album for a buck or 2, give the seller 50% of that and then settle for 25% of what's left (or maybe 25 cents)?

You need to get a grip on reality, or just admit that you believe that music has no value and should be free.

While I agree comparing to Russian services is silly, it's incorrect to say what they're doing is illegal. Only the RIAA is saying it's illegal. Until Russia changes it's laws, the site that most are referring to is legal....but I'd argue if you actually like a band, it's worth paying them.

Personally, i'll stick with CDs. The quality is better and I can convert to a newer/better CoDec down the road if I so choose.

I do agree, however, that the prices are probably still a bit high, but the problem is that Apple (and presumably other sellers) gets a huge chunk of the sale (50% in most cases), so there's very little going to the artists. Radiohead has pulled there music, because they get paid so little on each sale.

I'm glad for EMI's move. I'll probably try out the service for the first time because of this move. I also like that higher-quality is coming. As for DRM-free... well, finally people paying for their music will be able to use it as easily as those who pirate.

Regarding pricing, I would say that the price is too high, but not because the Russians or others are selling for less. It's because buying music from iTunes is often more expensive than buying the CD format (provided you don't just want that one song). Think of the difference in prices between brick & mortar stores and online retailers in other areas, such as computer hardware. The cost of distributing music a la iTunes simply must be lower in comparison to the costs of physical production, transportation, warehousing, and retail space.

I think if you're going to get your music online and save the production/distribution companies all that money, then they should pass on at least a portion of that savings to you. For me, I enjoy the sound from the CD the best. I did a test when I bought my stereo and had it set up properly, and I could guess the bitrate of mp3's 9 times out of when when blindfolded.

So my points:
- higher-quality is a major selling point for me
- usability is a selling point for me (DRM free)
- 25-50 cents/song leaves plenty of room to pay the artist and recording studio. I'm sure most of the money from music sales is still going to retail and giant production companies.

If Radiohead pulled their music, then they must own the rights to it themselves. In that case, why doesn't the band sell their music directly? I think the internet has a lot of potential for artists who want to play a bigger role in promoting and selling their music.

25 years after CD hit the market we go gaga over mp3 with it's 10% of CD music @ the same price as CD.....great isn't it?

welcome to the deaf generation !!!! The only reason Y this is happening is because 99% of the population are listening through $2 speakers ( yet some pay $1000 - eg BOSE & Bang&Olufsen..)

I was using mp3 12years ago when it was the only practical way of storing music on an hard disk

wake up people ! anything mp3 should not be called music

this is great news for audiophiles but...for those of us who just need an easier way to port our collections from place to place (be it on the go, work, or home) it seems a bit overkill. I don't mind the 30 cents but the "better" quality on an iPod the metro and/or sub $$$$ stereos, it won't be noticed. Still, this is a good thing :)

As a long time Emusic subscriber and music fan I applaud the move. I hope this will open the way for them to put some of their back catalog on Emusic! I can see thay they wouldn't want to put their new releases because Emusic charges too little per song, but the subscriber base is probably more interested in the back catalog tracks anyway.

This may also have me check iTunes. Up until now I didn't want to buy anything there because the bitrates were too low for my tastes (let's be real, CD quality in acc is 192kbps, not 128) and because of the DRM issue (I own an ipod and a zen vision).

"You can get DRM-free mp3's from emusic.com at about 25 cents/song. This is completely legitimate.

iTunes is a service for the rich with significant disposable income. The rest of us, unfortunately, don't have such luxury."


You're right, emusic does sell cheaper songs, and doesn't quite have the catalog iTunes does now does it. EMI has some good artists, and they deserve credit for the move.

iTunes isn't for the "rich", it's for people who don't steal music and feel they should pay because they aren't entitled to free music.

Why not just steal the music? Regardless of the legal status of this business in Russia, you are still stealing the music from the artists by buying from a company that is basically selling bootleg music. It's exactly the same thing as shoplifting, except for in most cases people are stealing hundreds, if not thousands of times. Support the artists you like. If noone did, there wouldnt be any artists to enjoy. And truly, more and more it is becoming this way. Its just like the tragedy of the commons.

It strike me as funny that we aren't all complaining about the digital music services stealing from us. Its digital information, it costs nothing for them to copy, and just a little bandwidth cost to send to us.

Add us the total cost of bandwidth, and you may come out to a quarter a song (that with the service itself taking a profit to continue operation). A little bit of the cost goes to the artist (they get more money from concerts), and the rest to the RIAA (why do you think they whine so much about illegal downloads?).

While I have never been a fan of iTunes or Apple in general, I do applaud their choice to do away with DRM. Its not like DRM has really stopped illegal copies of music from getting passed around, and it has just been a headache for those that buy the music. Not to mention, easily bypassed by those that can figure out the simple, built in method that exists in most every such service...

They are illegal because of international copyright laws, which Russia is required to follow, just like everyone else.
There is no special "Russia Clause" in international copyright law.

Two points to this...

They are and they arn't...
They are due to copyright, but when russians fail, another country or group will pick it up.
They arn't because the U.S. can't control what music they are allowed out there, if they don't want them to do it they should rip the music from their country until they get their act together, but until then artists make enough money and if they don't feel so, get a real job then. I make about 32,000yr, but I get all my music free due to my friends having subscriptions to other sites and stuff, do you call that illegal if friends are sharing music, I do not!

Anyways, FOR MOTHER RUSSIA!

There are no international copyright laws.
If there is, show me one.
Also if you're going to argue laws and ethics, it is critical that you understand the difference (both in legal and ethical sense) between theft and copyright infringement!

I have to side with Semi-Wise here.

The artists sees pennies on the dollar for each CD sale and song download. The record labels and RIAA see the vast majority of distribution. The artists make their money from appearances, concerts, other merchandising, endorsements, etc....

And, quiet honestly, I'm sick of how the labels/RIAA has been ripping off Joe Public all these years by price gouging. I recall a 20/20 program years ago where John Stossel did a report only to find out that CDs are cheaper to make than Casset Tapes, but which one cost more?

So when you say, "You should buy your songs from iTunes" to "support the artist", you're only supporting a machine that would like nothing more than to prevent us from making backup copies of things we bought legally in a store/online such that we could restore from catastrophy. I mean, I swear the RIAA intentionally had a hand in the design of the CD to be the least durable media ever created.

I love the idea of no DRM, if only it meant that I could use a PC solely for the purpose of running the terrible piece of software they call Itunes, and then transfer to proper equipment for playing the music. Quicktime won't install because it is screwed up, Itunes needs quicktime, APPLE products just don't function properly, They are resource hogs and it takes forceps and the promise of boiling water to remove them from hooking into the system and running on every boot stealing my precious system resources. I know apparently many people run Itunes, I personally can't stand such a bloated piece of crap. If Itunes would let me have the non-DRM content from a standard web-page I would really be interested. Legal, full quality songs with no DRM for $1.30? I am so there, but just as I won't run WMP because it is absolutely counter-intuitive and bloated, as well as a huge resource hog, I won't run Itunes. Simple is good, Itunes lite would float my boat.

I know I for one would not have jack crap in the way of music if i didn't get it for free, so the way i see it is i wouldn't of needed to buy countless other things if i didn't have a lot of digital music.

I read an article by the head guy at apple saying how little of the content on an average ipod is legal stuff. So its a give and take for the economy, some stuff is "stolen" but that generates a need for other things that are bought.

I personally don't think the illegal downloading of music hurts the industry as a whole very much at all. I don't hear on ET that some band is now homeless and broke due to the fact no one buys their music.

Yes, I’ve seen all the numbers and guesses as to how much money is lost because of this downloading and I think its total BS. Why? Because of one thing,

I did a little research awhile back for a paper on this topic. I can’t reference any sources but this its common knowledge I think most any person would know. I found the numbers for how much porn is sold legit and how much of it is downloaded illegally. Let me tell you if you compare those numbers to that of music, the RIAA needs to shut it because the porn industry is hurting A LOT more than the music industry.

I found the numbers for my research but as I said I think anyone would know that porn is downloaded a lot more than any music is (that’s what I meant by common knowledge not the numbers). And even with this I still haven't seen Hugh Hefner go lobby congress to stop this because he can’t sell a Playboy.

I think it boils down to one thing, greed. The people are now just being as greedy as the big dogs making all the money, and that pisses them off because that hurts their bottom line.

It is probably true that the recording and distribution companies are taking the biggest chunk from the $1.25. and you know what? that's probably more fair than you can imagine. Take the Rolling Stones. Who in the band can possibly handle production and distribution in place of these companies. If companies aren't getting the profits they do, they probably would stop promoting and selling the artists. consumers lose out in the end.

if you want iTunes to start sellling their songs for 25 cents thats fine, but you have to expect horrible service and a lot less choices. maybe all that's left are independent bands promoting their stuff.

Buying the CD's main merit is knowing you supported your band hoping to appreciate their whole album. but! and a big but, if you just wanted the best singles, which honestly are probably just 1 or 2 songs from the whole album in most cases, paying a bit more is entirely reasonable. if you punching on your calculator trying to see how much more you're paying for the album by dl'ing you are totally wasting your time.No more DRM is really kick ass, EMI is trying hard to get your business.

Any musician has the right to go independent. If the distributors and promoters take too big a chunk of the profits the bands can always go elsewhere. Most don't. Why? Because promoting and financing entertainment is an extremely expensive undertaking. Sure they take a big chunk of the profit... but that's all part of capitalism and free enterprise.

Sure the RIAA whines a lot. They do all kinds of crappy things to people to try to make more profit. But that issue and claiming that the recording industry doesn't deserve the percentage they make are entirely different things.