EMI and Radiohead are showing that you don’t need a powerhouse like iTunes to get yourself some attention. Always a band known to fight the power, Radiohead is planning on releasing a DRM-free boxset featuring all of their full length albums from 1993-2007, available for CD and digital download, as well as a special USB wave file edition, all of which are 320 bit CD quality.

While Radiohead still maintains that their music is best listened to on an album basis, these DRM-free sets are sure to put a light on each individual track in the long run. All of their long time fans alreay own all of these LP’s anyway. The boxset will be available on December 10. — Andrew Dobrow

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After the rumors running wild for about 24 hours now, EMI and Apple finally announced officially that EMI will now be offering DRM-free music to be sold on iTunes, and a higer audio quality than was offered before. This announcement spurs memories of Steve Jobs and his rant on DRM on the official Apple blog. Now that EMI has decided to release its music with the dreaded anti-piracy protection lifted, will other companies follow in its footsteps?

The new DRM-free music will be available at an audio quality of 26 kbps AAC format, twice the quality currently offered in the iTunes catalog. The new agreement also raises the price of these songs to $1.29 each, though Apple says they will still sell DRM enabled music for the $0.99 price tag. The DRM-free catalog will be available in May. No news on whether The Beatles will ever make it to iTunes. That subject was conveniently not announced. — Andrew Dobrow

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