After EMI, now UMG goes for DRM-free songs

More than a month after refusing to enter long-term deal with Apple Inc. to sell music through its online music store iTunes, Universal Music Group on Thursday announced that it’s soon going to make many of its songs available without copy protection.

Owned by French media giant Vivendi, Universal Music Group or UMG said it will sell DRM-free (without digital rights management) digital tracks as a nationwide test to assess the market.

However, the plan will last only for a few months, and DRM-free tracks will only be available on select music services, strictly not on iTunes.

According to Doug Morris, UMG's chairman and CEO, the test would provide the company “valuable insights into the implications of selling our music in an open format."

The analysts think UMG’s decision to abandon the practice of attaching customary copy protection software in its music, apparently has come to drive sales away from iTunes and create competition.

UMG first declined to renew its contract with Apple to sell music through the iTune music store, and now it is planning to sell its music online through other existing music retail services, including RealNetworks, Walmart, and artists' web sites, without any DRM.

"The experiment will run from August to January and analyse such factors as consumer demand, price sensitivity and piracy in regards to the availability of open MP3s," the music company said in a statement.

As part of its strange test, UMG, the world’s largest music company will sell a portion of its catalog, primarily its most popular content, without DRM between August 21 and January 31 of next year.

It will sell the unrestricted digital music from artists such as Amy Winehouse, 50 Cent and Stevie Wonder in MP3 format and each track will cost $99.

British music giant EMI Music is the only other recording label that is selling much of its music without anti-copying software. On April, 2, the London-based music label announced that it would start selling unprotected content.

On the same day, the third-largest recording company announced its deal with Apple Inc. to make the entire digital catalog of music available for purchase without DRM from the iTunes Store worldwide in May.

In its catalogue, Universal, the largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry, includes tracks from many of the world's biggest artists including Shania Twain, Bon Jovi, Elton John, Method Man, Tupac Shakur, Aaliyah, Jay-Z, Mariah Carey, Eminem, Dr. Dre, Diana Ross, Reba McEntire, Luciano Pavarotti, U2, Kanye West, and 50 Cent.