My Oh EMI

This is getting interesting. After appointing a top Googler as its "digital president", EMI Music has now nabbed Cory Ondrejka, most recently at Linden Lab, and the main technical brains behind Second Life:

Two weeks ago, I joined EMI Music as SVP of Digital Strategy.

Why EMI? By hiring Douglas Merrill, EMI has demonstrated a commitment to capitalize on all the technology available to make the music experience better for artists and fans. At Linden, the most important changes I drove were blends of technology and licensing, so when Douglas asked me to join him at EMI, I jumped at the chance. Music touches everyone in the world and is uniquely part of our lives -- how could I not take this challenge?

Two people who really get the digital world at the top of EMI Music: surely *something* good must come of that?

Has EMI Finally Heard the Music?

I'm not the biggest fan of private equity companies, but they do have the virtue of being ruthlessly logical: they are not enslaved by history, just by greed. That means they are not frightened of radical thinking or radical solutions if it brings them more of the foldable stuff. Thinking like this:

The record business - in which 85 per cent of artists are lossmaking and EMI pays £25m a year to scrap unsold CDs - "is stuck with a model designed for a world that has changed and gone forever", he says.

His solution is to switch from pushing CDs to pulling consumers towards music in different forms. One element will be focus groups. "People say the music industry is more creative and the customer doesn't know, only the creatives do.

"When you look at which car companies are succeeding it's the ones which work with their customers. Are clothes not creative? Is fashion not creative? Is food not creative? The only real difference is these industries have learnt to work with the customer and not force-feed them," he argues.

So, he seems to get the idea of listening to customers, which is good.

Surprisingly, he says that Radiohead, the band that ditched EMI last year to launch their latest album online, made the right choice. "Radiohead had the right idea. They understand their fans. They realise some of them want the premium box set. I'm one who bought one, and paid the full price. What Radiohead showed the industry was that it isn't one answer for all artists or indeed for every customer."

Which indicates that he also realises what the record business is really about: selling scarce commodities like analogue objects and unique relationships.

DRM's Worst Nightmare: Profit

This is what will finish off DRM:

Killing DRM is saving digital music, reckons British retailer 7Digital. The company says DRM-free music sales now outnumber sales of DRM-enumbered music by 4:1 , and credits EMI with the shift.

Removing the locks and keys also helps shift albums, with 70 per cent of MP3 sales by value being full albums.

Music companies that fight the move to DRM-less music are fighting against profits - and their shareholders might not like that....

Willy Nilly, Ageing Rocker Gets With It

Sir Cliff Richard, Tony's bosom pal, was one of the leading, er, lights in the effort to extend the sound copyright to a mere 95 years, instead of the current 50. Happily, that failed, but it's nonetheless surprising to see the music of the said musical knight being used for a nice bit of innovative thinking from EMI, one of the few music companies that seems to get it:

Benefiting from one of the first new digital directions from the new owners of EMI, from today, his latest album Love, The Album, goes for sale via online pre-order at £7.99 - with the price dropping the more fans make the purchase. The collection has a floor minimum of £3.99 and, no matter when a customer pre-ordered, they'll only pay the lowest final price.

Amazon Goes DRM-free - And So Do We (Almost)

This is big news:

Amazon.com today announced it will launch a digital music store later this year offering millions of songs in the DRM-free MP3 format from more than 12,000 record labels. EMI Music's digital catalog is the latest addition to the store. Every song and album in the Amazon.com digital music store will be available exclusively in the MP3 format without digital rights management (DRM) software.

It's important not so much because of the songs that will be freed in this way, as for the huge publicity it gives to the idea of being DRM-free. Until now, few end-users have really understood what the implications of DRM were; but once big names like Amazon start pushing the virtues of DRM-free stuff, then people will naturally demand it from other outlets - and from other labels alongside the enlightened EMI.

We're nearly there, people. (Via PaidContent.)

Microsoft Welcomes Openness and Standards

Here are some wise words on EMI's move to sell its entire catalogue without DRM:

Reindorp said the move could help Microsoft's effort, loosening the tight bonds between the iTunes store and the iPod.

"This does open things up a little bit," Reindorp said. "It potentially makes the competition more on a device-to-device or service-to-service basis. It will force the various services to really innovate."

Hmmm: now that's interesting. Microsoft reckons that opening things up is a good thing, because it will help it fight Apple on the basis of innovation. So how about if we "opened up" office formats, by opting for the vendor-neutral ODF?

The Great Content Taboo is Broken

This is what we've been waiting for:

EMI Music today announced that it is launching new premium downloads for retail on a global basis, making all of its digital repertoire available at a much higher sound quality than existing downloads and free of digital rights management (DRM) restrictions.

The new higher quality DRM-free music will complement EMI's existing range of standard DRM-protected downloads already available. From today, EMI's retailers will be offered downloads of tracks and albums in the DRM-free audio format of their choice in a variety of bit rates up to CD quality. EMI is releasing the premium downloads in response to consumer demand for high fidelity digital music for use on home music systems, mobile phones and digital music players.

The tracks are a little pricey:

Apple's iTunes Store (www.itunes.com) is the first online music store to receive EMI's new premium downloads. Apple has announced that iTunes will make individual AAC format tracks available from EMI artists at twice the sound quality of existing downloads, with their DRM removed, at a price of $1.29/€1.29/£0.99. iTunes will continue to offer consumers the ability to pay $0.99/€0.99/£0.79 for standard sound quality tracks with DRM still applied. Complete albums from EMI Music artists purchased on the iTunes Store will automatically be sold at the higher sound quality and DRM-free, with no change in the price. Consumers who have already purchased standard tracks or albums with DRM will be able to upgrade their digital music for $0.30/€0.30/£0.20 per track. All EMI music videos will also be available on the iTunes Store DRM-free with no change in price.

but that's not the point. A taboo has been broken, and things will never be the same again in the world of digital content.