Friday, 13 April 2007

EMI & Soundbuzz in Talks to Sell DRM Free Songs in Asia

EMI and Soundbuzz are reportedly in negotiations with each other in an aim to offer Asia Pacific music aficionados an opportunity to download their favourite tunes copyright free.

According to the Singapore Straits Times, EMI Music Singapore’s managing director Mohan Mahabatra was quoted as saying that the two companies began preliminary talks last week to sell unprotected digital music over the Internet that can be played on computers, mobile phones and portable music players for a fee of 2 dollars. This is approximately 30 cents more than the current minimum price of digital rights managed or DRM protected songs that the online music store is recommending.

This follows last week’s announcements that EMI and Apple will be offering DRM-free music on Apple’s i-Tunes application. The online music store will be selling DRM-free songs from EMI’s music portfolio for 1.30 USD as opposed to 1 USD for DRM protected tunes.

However, patronage for the popular Cupertino, California based consumer electronics’ music store is exclusive only to consumers in the United States, Europe, Australia and Japan. There are currently no plans to extend its geographical standing although it did open a New Zealand store last year. Soundbuzz has a more regional presence in Asia Pacific and reaches to countries including, Singapore, Australia, Brunei, Cambodia, India, Indonesia etc.

Apparently Soundbuzz has been in talks with the all the “Big Four” record companies- EMI, Song BMG, Universal and Warner- to offer copyright free music for quite a while now and it is believed that once the EMI-Soundbuzz venture takes off, the rest will also follow suite.