I woke this morning the glorious news that EMI is dropping DRM from its entire digital music catalog and will start offering songs and albums for download in unencumbered high bit rate MP3 AAC formats! But wait, April Fools Day was yesterday! This is for real!

From Reuters:
"The new higher quality DRM-free music will complement EMI's existing range of standard DRM-protected downloads already available," EMI said in a statement on Monday as the company began a press conference in central London with Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs.

"From today, EMI's retailers will be offered downloads of tracks and albums in the DRM-free audio format of their choice in a variety of bit rates up to CD quality," EMI added.

Apple said iTunes would make individual tracks available from EMI artists at twice the sound quality of existing downloads, with their DRM removed, at a price of $1.29, 1.29 euros and 99 pence.

It's a good thing we didn't send the Jester's Hat to Steve Jobs (yesterday we heard murmurings that there might be a big announcement). I guess we'll be sending a thank you letter with the open letter and over 6000 signatures, we're throwing in a nice DBD T-Shirt too! What do you think we should send Steve as a thank-you for making good on his pledge? Send us your ideas here.

For more info on this groundbreaking deal, check out Apple's website.