Apple and major music label EMI announced a deal to sell slightly more expensive and slightly higher resolution downloads that are DRM free last week. At $1.29 the new downloads will not have the typical encryption that only allows music bought on Apple’s iTunes Music Store to be played on an Apple iPod. These new music files will be compatible on nearly every other MP3 player and like a Compact Disc will be DRM (digital rights management) free as Apple founder, Steven Jobs, called for in a recent open letter to the music business.

In an open letter seemingly targeted to the big four major record labels, Apple founder, visionary and audiophile – Steven Jobs discusses the possibility of removing the DRM (digital rights management) copy protection from music files like the systems used on the files purchased from Apple’s ITunes Music Store. Jobs makes some strong points including the fact that the Compact Disc which sells well today (over $9,000,000,000 per year domestically) yet has no DRM system to protect music files that any consumer can rip to a computer, an MP3 device and most commonly an Apple iPod.

Nielsen SoundScan has reported a dramatic growth in the sales of digital music downloads for 2006. Through the first 49 weeks of 2006, sales of individually downloaded digital tracks are up more than 67 percent over the same period in 2005, accounting for more than 525 million digital downloads; already 173 million more than 2005’s annual total. Historically, digital downloads have dramatically increased year-over-year. In 2005, digital track sales reached 353 million; 150 percent higher than total track sales for all of 2004. In 2004, digital download track sales broke the 100 million mark with more than 140 million digital tracks sold. In 2006 to date, 54 tracks have sold more than 500,000 units as opposed to only 22 tracks in all of 2005. None reached that sales mark in 2004. Digitally downloaded albums have increased more than 100 percent with 29.7 million ...

Reports from the Internet including gaming website, IGN.com, report that the music industry group, RIAA, is petitioning judges to lower the royalties paid on music. This comes as the music industry has been suffering from eroding sales that has reduced their domestic yearly sales from north of 30 billion dollars per year in the early 1990’s to reportedly around 11 billion dollars in 2005. Concurrently, other sales reports show downloads sold through legitimate vendors such as Apple’s iTunes Music Store represent in the ballpark of 3 billion dollars in sales.

Pearl Jam will soon offer fans a live webcast from the Ed Sullivan Theatre, immediately following a "Late Show with David Letterman" taping. Pearl Jam, which just released an album this last Tuesday, will begin the webcast on Thursday evening. The band will rip through some classics, and play new tracks from the new disc, titled Pearl Jam. The action can be viewed at cbs.com/lateshow, beginning at approximately 5:55 pm EST. The band can be seen on Letterman at 11:30 pm on CBS.