Universal Music Group to try selling DRM-free music
Universal Music Group has announced that they will begin selling a significant portion of their digital music catalog without the standard copy protection software in place (digital rights management). DRM-free content from Universal will be offered at digital music retail services such as RealNetworks, Wal-Mart, Amazon.com, Google, and at some artist websites. Notably absent from this list is Apple’s own music service - iTunes. Universal will offer DRM-free music for a short period of time (until January) to see if this has any effect over digital music sales and in online piracy.
The more interesting part of this story is the fact that Universal would not be offering DRM-free content via iTunes - instead forcing iTunes to still pay for DRM protected tracks. Remember - it was only a month or so ago when Universal announced that they would not be agreeing to a long term music contract with iTunes. Put all of this together and it seems clear that Universal aims at stirring up competition to iTunes by providing DRM-free content via other retail channels.
EMI Group was the first company to switch to selling DRM-free digital music. Tracks from EMI that were DRM-free are being sold for $1.29. Universal announced that some of their DRM-free content would be sold for as low as $99 cents.