Apple and EMI announced today that they will begin offering their entire catalog via Apple's iTunes in May. Apple CEO Steve Jobs and EMI CEO Eric Nicoli made their joint announcement today in London.  EMI is the first of the big four music labels to embrace Apple's wildly successful iTunes music distribution channel. This marks a major industry shift in web distribution of music and video. Apparently, EMI has not reached a distribution agreement with the owners of the Beatles catalog as this is not covered under this announcement. Aside from the Beatles, EMI owns the rights to artists such as Pink Floyd and Britney Spears and many others.EMI and Apple also announceed that the music will be made available "Digital Rights Management" free (DRM). This can only be described as a radical step by an industry that up till now has been desperately protecting their franchise rather than migrating to the inexorable reality of web...(Read Full Post)