Microsoft announced it is in talks with EMI Music and other major record labels to begin selling DRM-free downloads for its Zune portable media player. “Consumers have made it clear that unprotected music is something they want,” Microsoft spokeswoman Katy Asher said in an e-mail to the IDG News Service. “We plan on offering it to them as soon as our label partners are comfortable with it.”

The news follows rival Apple’s announcement that it will begin selling unrestricted content from the EMI catalog next month. Apple’s iTunes digital storefront will offer DRM-free EMI content at a higher-quality 256 kbps AAC encoding–each track will cost $1.29, as opposed to the 99 cents Apple charges for downloads with DRM and 128 kbps AAC encoding.

Microsoft released Zune and its Zune Marketplace storefront in November 2006. Early sales reports suggest the device has done little to cut into the iPod market share: According to figures compiled by consumer research firm NPD, in February 2007 Apple controlled 73.7 percent of the U.S. portable music player market, while Microsoft claimed just 2.3 percent, behind SanDisk and Creative. Zune, a device touted for its wireless content-sharing capabilities, also has suffered from technological snafus preventing the service from working as promised, prompting Microsoft to issue a statement denying rumors that record labels are preventing sharing of songs by certain acts.

For more on Microsoft’s DRM plans:
- read this PC Pro article