Audio Video News

Recent moves by Universal Music Group, the world's largest music label, may result in a more freewheeling DRM-free download retail environment.

Having just rattled its saber at iTunes, Universal is also about to experiment with sales of downloads free of digital rights management. That should allow them to play not only in iPods but in any other brand of music player.

While iTunes does offer DRM-free downloads--at higher data rates and higher prices--they are still limited to the AAC compression codec favored by Apple. To ensure the broadest hardware/software compatibility, Universal will instead use MP3. That in turn will require the participation of online music retailers other than iTunes. They will include Amazon, Google, RealNetworks, and Wal-Mart. Results will be evaluated in January. Then Universal may announce its next move.

This makes Universal the second of the four major labels to take a decisive step away from DRM. EMI has also released a large portion of its catalogue without DRM.