iTunes has had DRM-free music for a while now, but it costs $1.29 per song. We'll have to wait and see if they reduce their price or if Amazon raises theirs.

I just want to simply buy a song, as opposed to the license to listen to a song in a particular way. This is definitely good news.

I was listening to NPR on the way to work and they reported that Amazon currently only has 2 of the 4 major labels and most of the independents, whereas iTunes has all 4 and the indys. So you can't get everyone; but still...this is great. Most likely when they start catching up with iTunes, those other labels won't waste a second making a little extra dough at Amazon.

Here's the NPR story:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14682018

I was listening to NPR on the way to work and they reported that Amazon currently only has 2 of the 4 major labels and most of the independents, whereas iTunes has all 4 and the indys. So you can't get everyone; but still...this is great. Most likely when they start catching up with iTunes, those other labels won't waste a second making a little extra dough at Amazon.

Here's the NPR story:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14682018

Yeah, I was noticing some gaps as I was poking around, but man, they have the Tiger Lillies! woot. The albums as a whole are a lot cheaper than buying the songs individually (probably the same at Itunes), Ima starting to have real hope that DRM will go the way of so many other failed things.

What's a DRM? Do they make you sick? Are they bad for the Ozone? I know I could do some research, but, frankly, I'm tired, and I know one of you guys knows. All I can tell is that they make songs on iTunes 30 cents cheaper. How bad can they be?

What's a DRM? Do they make you sick? Are they bad for the Ozone? I know I could do some research, but, frankly, I'm tired, and I know one of you guys knows. All I can tell is that they make songs on iTunes 30 cents cheaper. How bad can they be?

DRM stands for Digital Rights Management. In a nut shell what this means is the piece of Music you download or rip from certain CDs contains bits of extra code that physically limit you on how often you can copy, or transfer the song, making a mix CD you want to share with friends? Better not make more than a few copies or your license will run out(for example), have an mp3 player? Hope you don't like to move your music back and forth a bunch. It is an attempt by record companies to combat piracy, but in reality there is fairly low tech ways around this (copy to analog then back to digital) that essentially make DRM more of an PIA issue for the average consumer who may not be set up to do this then for any serious "pirate". DRM also presents the possibility (not confirmed but an easy step to make)to "report back" to a central source online if you use it with a computer hooked to the internet, what IP is listening to what songs, how many times that song has been copied and who bought it. I absolutely refuse to purchase any music I know that has any DRM embedded and I am a fairly serious consumer of music (200 GB worth of tunes so far), it pissed me off tremendiously.