June 14, 2007
EMI to sell protection-free songs via PassAlong
EMI Group, the world's third-largest music company, is expanding its strategy to sell digital music without copy-protection software to more retail sites through a deal with PassAlong Networks. Reuters reports.
"The new premium download tracks will be available in a higher sound quality MP3 format of 320 kilobits per second, compared with the usual 128 to 192 kilobits per second rate offered by most online music stores such as Apple Inc.'s iTunes Music Store.
PassAlong said EMI will add more than 100,000 premium downloads to PassAlong's catalog of nearly 3 million songs, of which more than 2 million are songs from independent labels in MP3 format.
Earlier this month, EMI became the first major record company to start selling the vast majority of its digital albums without copy-protection software, also known as digital rights management (DRM).
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