It looks like Apple is prepared to start selling DRM-free music from EMI this afternoon. We've known this day was coming, but yesterday Apple released iTunes 7.2 with support for "iTunes Plus," which seems to be Apple's name for unencrypted music.

A quick refresher course. DRM-free tracks will be available for $1.29, or $.30 more than tracks with Apple's Fair Play copy protection. While the ability to play the files on any device you choose is probably worth the extra cost, the songs will also be encoded at 256kbps, compared with 128kbps for the encrypted $.99 songs.

Apple is also expanding its iTunes U service, making university lectures available to the public for free.

[via tuaw]