Tech Shout!

Universal Music Group will now test the digital sale of songs from artists without the customary copy-protection technology, announced the largest major label in the record industry.

Music lovers will now get digital tracks from thousands of albums in MP3 format without any DRM. Albums of leading artists such as Sting, 50 Cent, Black Eyed Peas, Maroon 5, Johnny Cash, Amy Winehouse and Stevie Wonder will feature in it.

The music would be made available on the respective recording artists’ websites and music retailers online.

Retailers such as Google, Wal-Mart, and Amazon.com, will participate in the DRM-free trial, Universal said. It seems that the only one missing from the list of participants is Apple’s iTunes online music store, who in May 2007, began selling DRM-free music. But all the same the songs will work with Apple’s iPod player.

Till now, EMI has been the only major music publisher to offer versions of its songs with higher audio quality without any DRM technology.

While speaking about this new venture, Doug Morris, UMG’s chairman and CEO said, “Universal Music Group is committed to exploring new ways to expand the availability of our artists’ music online, while offering consumers the most choice in how and where they purchase and enjoy our music. This test, which is a continuation of a series of tests that UMG began conducting earlier in the year, will provide valuable insights into the implications of selling our music in an open format.”

This test run would go on from August 21 till January 31 2008.

Furthermore, the Vivendi-owned company stated that they would compare the sales data of this music with the sales on the Apple iTunes store.

But that’s not it; this could perhaps also be UMG’s way of challenging the authority of Apple iTunes in this market by supporting other music retailers online.

However UMG is not the pioneer in this as EMI has been offering versions of its songs with higher audio quality without any DRM technology. Music publisher EMI first struck a deal with iTunes in which songs without copy protection (and with better audio quality) would be sold at a higher price — $1.29 instead of the usual 99 cents for the restricted songs.