When Apple and EMI rushed out a last minute invitation to a joint press-conference this weekend it was widely assumed that the two companies would be announcing the long-anticipated arrival of the Beatles’ back catalogue in digital form on Apple’s iTunes Store.

Instead, they announced a move that could have even greater implications for the future of the music industry. From April onwards, EMI will make its entire music catalogue available in digital form in two separate downloadable versions.

The first version will – as is the case at the moment – continue to be available from online stores such as iTunes for 79p per track and will be protected by DRM (digital rights management software designed to prevent the songs from being copied). And, in the case of the iTunes Store, this DRM also prevents those songs from being played on anything other than Apple’s own iPods.

However, EMI will now be making all its songs available in a second format as well, These new versions of the songs will cost 99p each, but will be DRM-free and will also provide higher quality – “virtually indistinguishable from the original”, according to Apple CEO, Steve Jobs.

People will also be able to buy complete albums in the new DRM-free format, however these albums will not increase in price. Owners of existing 79p track will also have the option of upgrading to the higher-quality DRM free songs for an additional 20p.

Jobs has been lobbying the music industry for some time to drop its use of DRM and he praised EMI for “taking this bold step”. He also stated that Apple is “reaching out to the rest of the industry” in order to reach similar agreements with all the other major record labels. However, the last word has to go to Damon Albarn, who made a guest appearance at the event, and who is reported to have described the move as “**** brilliant”.