EMI Group said it will sell individual song downloads and albums on Apple’s iTunes without Digital Rights Management software.

The Consumer Electronics Association applauded the announcement from Apple and EMI Music that Apple will offer the entire digital music catalog of EMI Music in high quality format.

For $1.29 per song, tracks from EMI will be offered at 256 kbps AAC encoding, resulting in audio quality closer to that of a CD. The tracks will also be sold free of digital rights management software that prevents copying.

CEA President/CEO Gary Shapiro said what consumers really want out of their digital music experience is “high-resolution recordings worthy of both home and on-the-go listening, along with the freedom to move music among devices.” He called on other content companies and digital music services to follow the example.

Gigi B. Sohn, president of Public Knowledge said “Consumers will have the same digital freedom from an album they download as one they purchase from a store. We can only hope that the rest of the industry takes such an enlightened view.”