The net is abuzz with talk today about Qtrax, another service that promises free ad-supported music. The Qtrax service offers to let you use an ad-supported program to search for and download DRM’d music that you can play on a PC and on some media players. Unfortunately, it looks like Qtrax will be as dead [...]

Amazon.com has announced plans for an international rollout of Amazon MP3, a DRM-free MP3 digital music store, in 2008. Amazon MP3 is currently the only retailer that the four major labels are allowing to offer customers DRM-free MP3s. As a result, it can offer over 3.3 million songs from more than 270,000 artists in DRM-free [...]

For a long time, people have thought that getting the music industry to switch to DRM-free MP3s for music downloads would open the doors to a consumer-friendly world of digital music competition. Now it’s starting to look like the music industry wil use DRM-free MP3s to enforce their traditional monopoly on what you hear, what [...]

Napster has joined the ranks of companies trying to compete with Apple’s iTunes by offering MP3 music downloads. The file format change will apply only to single tracks and album purchases, according tothe company. Tracks downloaded as part of the company’s music subscription service will continue to be DRM’d. “The ubiquity and cross-platform compatibility of [...]

Deutsche Grammophon, the world’s leading classical music record label, has launched the DG Web Shop, a digital music store that offers the majority of the label’s recordings as MP3 downloads. Almost 2,500 DG albums will be available for download at a transfer bit-rate of 320 kilobits per second (kbps). The label will be available in [...]

After years of attack from everyone from privacy advocates to consumer rights groups to so-called “freetards”, it looks like DRM’d music may finally get killed off by Wal-Mart & Pepsi. And it’s not because they care about your rights as a consumer. It’s because they want onto your iPod. According to an article in Billboard, [...]

The Guardian reports that the BBC is introducing music podcasts, featuring highlights from their radio programming and short music clips in “top 40″ style format. Starting Saturday, November 17, the offerings will include Folk & Acoustic with Mike Harding from Radio 2, Stuart Maconie’s Freak Zone from 6 Music and the Asian Network Chart. 1Xtra [...]

It’s been a long time since I rock and rolled…..but the wait is over. Led Zeppelin are now available in iTunes – the complete mamajama collection, remastered. Each of Zep’s individual albums is available, or you can get everything for $99. Check it out. (iTunes link) We’re going to get the tracks off the one [...]

NPR and 12 NPR Member stations recognized for music programming have launched NPR Music, a new, free, comprehensive multimedia music discovery Web site. The site features on-air and online content aggregated from NPR and the participating stations as well as original-to-NPR Music materials such as interviews, reviews, blogs and live performances. The site is already [...]

Led Zeppelin will soon have a Whole Lotta Love for digital music fans – they’ve announced plans to make their entire catalog available as digital downloads. Starting November 13, Led Zeppelin will join the digital music revolution. They are one of the last remaining bands to hold out on releasing their music to iTunes and [...]