PARIS, 16 MAY 2007 -- EMI Music France today announced that it has signed a new agreement with its retail partner VirginMega enabling VirginMega to sell EMI Music’s entire digital repertoire at much higher sound quality and without the restrictions of digital rights management (DRM-free).

The catalogue of EMI Music France will be available in the VirginMega store (www.virginmega.fr) in MP3 format, without DRM and in a superior sound quality (320 kbits per second instead of 128 -192 kbits per second) as well as in the existing format. EMI’s new product offering will enable full interoperability of digital music across all devices and services and platforms.

Jean-François Cecillon, chairman and CEO of EMI Music International in London, said: “We are delighted to have signed this agreement with our partner VirginMega. This collaboration will help us in our goal to offer consumers higher sound quality and the best possible experience of digital music. By providing downloads without DRM, we are addressing the lack of interoperability that has frustrated so many music fans. Our overall goal with this new product offering is to accelerate the development of digital music. “

Jean Noel Reinhardt, chairman of Virgin Stores, said: “We are pleased that EMI is the first major music company to join us in our fight for interoperability in order to serve the best interests of consumers. We hope others will do the same.“

About EMI Music
EMI Music is the recorded music division of EMI Group, the world's largest independent music company. Its EMI Music division represents artists spanning all musical tastes and genres. Its record labels include Angel, Astralwerks, Blue Note, Capitol, Capitol Nashville, EMI Classics, EMI CMG, EMI Records, EMI Televisa Music, Manhattan, Mute, Parlophone and Virgin. Artists on EMI labels include Lily Allen, The Beatles, Coldplay, Corinne Bailey Rae, The Good The Bad & The Queen, Gorillaz, Norah Jones, The Kooks, Korn, Kylie Minogue, Pink Floyd, Rolling Stones, Joss Stone, 30 Seconds To Mars, KT Tunstall, Keith Urban and Robbie Williams, as well as international artists such as Amaral (Spain), Diam’s (France), Utada Hikaru (Japan), LaFee (Germany), Radja (Indonesia), RBD (Mexico) and Vasco Rossi (Italy).

EMI has been at the cutting edge of the rapidly growing digital music marketplace since it released David Bowie’s ‘Hours’ as the world’s first ever album to be offered as a digital download in 1999. EMI has signed agreements with hundreds of digital partners to distribute its music across the globe.  It continues to facilitate the development of a growing range of new digital business models to enable fans to experience and purchase its artists’ output through a number of different platforms including advertising-supported online music streaming in China through Baidu, legal peer-to-peer agreements with QTrax, Mashboxx and GNAB, and a deal to offer advertising-supported videos on mobile phones in the US through Rhythm NewMedia.   For further information on EMI, please visit: www.emigroup.com.

About VirginMega
In 2004, Virgin Stores SA launched the download site www.virginmega.fr .VirginMega.fr is a digital distributor of cultural products (music, video, electronic ticketing, photos) on all digital channels (PC, mobile phone…).  Today it has 1.6m unique visitors and offers more than 2m music titles for sale.  VirginMega has also launched a platform dedicated to classical music, www.virginmega-classique.fr .

Enquiries:

Agence Rue du Louvre, David Sablon, Tel : + 33 1 40 13 75 40, Mail : ds@ruedulouvre.fr