I am proud to present the latest Apple rumor to you in all its glory. This week, the iTunes Music Store is the center of attention. It seems a “credible French-Italian source who knows my Dad’s mechanic” has indicated that Apple is set to launch EMI’s catalog of DRM-free music this week. The reason for the delay in Apple getting those tracks up? Apple wants to do it all at once rather than gradually start rolling out a few DRM-free tracks here and there.

Right now, the engineers working on the project are apparently just getting the files encoded and hosted. Once that’s done, you’ll have yourself some DRM-free hotness to choose from. Of course, I’m not exactly thrilled about 256Kbps AAC file when I’ve been pirating V0 rips for the past year, but hey, it’s a start.

DRM-free iTunes set this week? [Electronista]