EMI held a press conference today to announce it will sell its entire catalog in DRM-free, high quality downloads. (Read press release.) iTunes will be the first online retailer to offer the tracks. Each track will cost $1.29, or $0.30 higher than lower quality tracks with DRM. Complete albums will automatically be sold with the higher sound quality and without DRM -- but at the same price (now iTunes' second incentive to purchase an entire album over individual tracks).

Said EMI's Eric Nicoli, "ur goal is to give consumers the best possible digital music experience. By providing DRM-free downloads, we aim to address the lack of interoperability which is frustrating for many music fans. We believe that offering consumers the opportunity to buy higher quality tracks and listen to them on the device or platform of their choice will boost sales of digital music."

Engadget live-blogged the event and its Q&A session. Click here to listen to the webcast of the press conference.

On a side note, I have to wonder if today's announcement would have been held if Levy and Munns were still running EMI. Many seemed to feel that EMI's previous leadership was too "old guard" and that the company was not properly transforming itself for the digital era. Nicoli did not waste much time in ridding EMI of at least one old convention.

[music jobs] HR Manager at EMI NA; New York, NY.