On Monday 2 Apr, between axing Levy and Munns and being axed himself, then EMI chief Eric Nicoli did something special - he announced the entire EMI catalogue would be made available without DRM, initially exclusively via Apple iTunes, and then via all download platforms. The DRM free music would be slightly more expensive, though it would come in a higher audio quality too. It was a big development, and the beginning of the end for restrictive digital rights management software, the technology which aimed to restrict the distribution of digital music, but which achieve little in that domain, and which simply pissed off consumers and gave the IT companies that made the DRM far too much power in the digital music space.
It was that latter point that persuaded Universal Music to follow EMI's lead and, as of August, start to experiment in making its music available without DRM. Unlike EMI who launched its DRM free catalogue with Apple, Universal made it available to everyone but Apple. Universal chief Doug Morris is known to resent just how powerful Apple have become in the digital music space - something that happened because of DRM, because it is DRM that locks iPod users to the iTunes Music Store and vice versa. Because the iPod plays the universal but DRM free MP3 format as well as Apple's proprietary and DRMable AAC format, if Universal went DRM free Apple's hold over where iPod users can buy major label downloads would end. So that's what they did. And while Universal's DRM moves are in theory still in an experimental phase, everyone now expects them to continue DRM free once their six month trial is over. And hurrah for that. Meanwhile, slow to respond to the inevitable, SonyBMG and Warner Music are expected to follow suit in early 2008, SonyBMG first.