"Consumers tell us they would be prepared to pay a higher price for a piece of music they can play on any player," said EMI boss Eric Nicoli. "We have to trust our consumers," he said. "We have always argued that the best way to combat illegal traffic is to make legal content available at decent value and convenient."

Apple boss Steve Jobs shared the platform with Mr Nicoli and said: "This is the next big step forward in the digital music revolution - the movement to completely interoperable DRM-free music." He added: "The right thing to do is to tear down walls that precluded interoperability by going DRM-free and that starts here today."

Read more on BBC News . 

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