Get DRM Free Music for 94 cents a Song

February 4, 2008 By Matthew Paulson

Back in the hay day of music piracy when Napster was king and all other music downloading services weren’t even a blip on the radar screen, music companies were not offering any competitive legitimate way to download music. All of the services being offered by the record labels were actually more expensive than going out and buying the physical CDs. In addition the music that you received was crippled by digital rights management software that severely hindered what you could do with the music you listened to, even though you were well within your legal fair use rights to do so.

Consumers did not react well to DRM hindered music, and now the record industry is starting to change their tune, no pun intended. Although the record industry has a long way to go before they’re in totally in touch with consumer demand, they’re definitely making a move in the right direction. Two of the major record labels, Universal Music and EMI, are going to be offering DRM free music for sale. Between the two labels, they control about half of the major artists. Thus, the offering of DRM free music will surely be a trend setting move for the entire industry.

Universal and EMI are teaming up with America’s premier discounter, Wal-Mart, to offer the tracks at a mere 94 cents per song. Compare that to iTunes where you’ll have to pay $1.29 for a DRM free song, or $.99 for a DRM-crippled song.

You’ll be able to get music from artists such as 50 Cent, Bon Jovi, Counting Crows, the Rolling Stones, the Beach Boys, Coldplay, and many more artists. And since the music is DRM free, you will be able to use it just about anywhere. When purchasing from iTunes, you’re limited to using the music on your iPod or burning up to three copies of the CD. With the DRM free music that Wal-Mart will be offering, you will be able to move the music on to any music device you want. You can put them on as many MP3 players as you’d like, burn them to CD’s, put them on your computer, or use them just about anywhere.

The record industry has always had a strange obsession with piracy of its music, even though there is quite a bit of doubt as to whether or not music piracy actually hurts the sales of records. Previously the record industry has tried to use Digital Rights Management technologies, but intrepid hackers have always found a way to get around such attempts to prevent music piracy. The record industry has instead decided to put watermarks inside of music. This way it will be DRM free, however if a consumer was to illegally share the music online, the record industry would know who was propagating that music.

Overall EMI and Universal’s move to offer DRM free music is definitely a step in the right direction. The record industry has a long way to go, but it’s a lot better than what was being offered before.

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