Music company EMI Group PLC -- home of the Rolling Stones and Coldplay -- has been talking with online retailers about possibly selling its entire digital music catalog in MP3 format without copy protection, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday, citing numerous people familiar with the matter.
The MP3 format, which can be freely copied and played on virtually any device, would allow consumers to play music purchased from any online store on any digital music device.
Currently, music purchased at Apple Inc's iTunes Store, for example, is wrapped in Apple's proprietary version of digital rights management (DRM) technology known as "FairPlay" and can only be played on the company's iPod devices. Songs purchased from rival online stores that carry different DRM technology cannot be played on iPods. That has caused some to wonder whether it might be hampering sales.
Proposals
According to the people familiar with the matter, London-based EMI asked the retailers to submit proposals by Thursday telling the company what size advance payments they would offer in exchange for the right to sell EMI's music as MP3s, the Journal reported.
One of the unidentified people said EMI would decide whether to forge ahead with the strategy based on the size of the offers.
A decision about whether to keep pursuing the idea was due to come as soon as yesterday, the Journal said.
When asked about the report, EMI spokeswoman Jeanne Meyer said: "We're not commenting on speculation."
Earlier this week, Apple chief executive Steve Jobs called on record labels to abandon their requirement for online music to use DRM, which is designed to limit unauthorized copying.
Jobs said such restrictions have done little to slow music piracy and eliminating them would open up the online music marketplace.
Protection Critical
One person familiar with the matter told the Journal that several major music companies have recently floated the idea of scrapping copy protections, but none appears to have gone as far as EMI, and some maintain that copy-protection software is critical to stopping piracy.
EMI is the world's third-largest music company by sales and home to acts ranging from the Beatles to the Beastie Boys. But some of its performers -- notably including the Beatles -- do not yet sell their music in any digital form.
EMI has experimented with releasing singles in the DRM-free MP3 format. In the past few months, the company has released tracks by Norah Jones, Lily Allen and the band Relient K.
On Thursday night, Meyer said: "The results of those experiments were very positive, and the fan feedback has been very enthusiastic."
EXPRESSING GRATITUDE: Without its Taiwanese partners which are ‘working around the clock,’ Nvidia could not meet AI demand, CEO Jensen Huang said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and US-based artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer Nvidia Corp have partnered with each other on silicon photonics development, Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said. Speaking with reporters after he met with TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) in Taipei on Friday, Huang said his company was working with the world’s largest contract chipmaker on silicon photonics, but admitted it was unlikely for the cooperation to yield results any time soon, and both sides would need several years to achieve concrete outcomes. To have a stake in the silicon photonics supply chain, TSMC and
IDENTITY: Compared with other platforms, TikTok’s algorithm pushes a ‘disproportionately high ratio’ of pro-China content, a study has found Young Taiwanese are increasingly consuming Chinese content on TikTok, which is changing their views on identity and making them less resistant toward China, researchers and politicians were cited as saying by foreign media. Asked to suggest the best survival strategy for a small country facing a powerful neighbor, students at National Chia-Yi Girls’ Senior High School said “Taiwan must do everything to avoid provoking China into attacking it,” the Financial Times wrote on Friday. Young Taiwanese between the ages of 20 and 24 in the past were the group who most strongly espoused a Taiwanese identity, but that is no longer
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake and several aftershocks battered southern Taiwan early this morning, causing houses and roads to collapse and leaving dozens injured and 50 people isolated in their village. A total of 26 people were reported injured and sent to hospitals due to the earthquake as of late this morning, according to the latest Ministry of Health and Welfare figures. In Sising Village (西興) of Chiayi County's Dapu Township (大埔), the location of the quake's epicenter, severe damage was seen and roads entering the village were blocked, isolating about 50 villagers. Another eight people who were originally trapped inside buildings in Tainan
‘ARMED GROUP’: Two defendants used Chinese funds to form the ‘Republic of China Taiwan Military Government,’ posing a threat to national security, prosecutors said A retired lieutenant general has been charged after using funds from China to recruit military personnel for an “armed” group that would assist invading Chinese forces, prosecutors said yesterday. The retired officer, Kao An-kuo (高安國), was among six people indicted for contravening the National Security Act (國家安全法), the High Prosecutors’ Office said in a statement. The group visited China multiple times, separately and together, from 2018 to last year, where they met Chinese military intelligence personnel for instructions and funding “to initiate and develop organizations for China,” prosecutors said. Their actions posed a “serious threat” to “national security and social stability,” the statement
RSS