Rhapsody is offering 100,000 free album downloads through July 4th to promote its DRM-free digital music service:
If you’re one of the first 100,000 to create an account by Independence Day, we’ll automatically apply a $10 credit to your first album purchase. The credit must be used by midnight Pacific time, July 4, 2008. Limit one [...]

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 you [...]

DRM’d music is dead. DRM’d video will be next.
As CD sales plummet, the record labels have realized that they have to get with the 21st century. They have to have a place on your iPod, if they expect you to listen to them, and they have to get rid of DRM if they want to [...]

DRM’d music is roadkill, steamrolled by iPods, iTunes and fair use.
Businessweek reports that Sony BMG is finalizing plans to sell songs without DRM, the copyright protection software that has long restricted the use of music downloaded from the Internet.
Sony BMG, a joint venture of Sony and Bertelsmann, will make at least part of its collection [...]

Portable media player manufactuer Neuros Technology has created the Unlocked Media brand to create a consumer friendly trademark out of the abstract idea of “DRM Free” media.
The concept behind the Unlocked Media trademark is that it be made available for free to any entity that uses media using open standard technology which is available to [...]

Apple today announced that it has lowered the price of its iTunes Plus tracks to 99 cents, effectively killing the idea that DRM-free tracks are worth paying a premium for. Other online vendors, including Amazon and Wal-Mart, already offer DRM-free tracks at 99 cents or less.
Apple introduced the iTunes Plus option just six months ago. [...]

Amazon today launched a public beta of Amazon MP3, a new digital music download store that features DRM-free MP3s. The new store promises music downloads that work with any portable media player, at prices cheaper than iTunes.
While Amazon is offering millions of songs, at prices lower than Apple’s iTunes Store, it faces an uphill battle.
Five [...]

It looks like selling DRM-free MP3s on the cheap isn’t enough to get people interested in new digital music services. AnywhereCD, the digital music download site headed by MP3.com’s Michael Robertson, is shutting down:
According to an email from Robertson, the firm is officially shutting down in a few days, when the firm’s contract to sell [...]

It looks breaking Apple’s lock on digital music downloads is so important to the music industry that¬† record companies are willing to not only offer DRM-free tracks, but offer them at lower prices.
Wal-Mart announced today the launch of DRM-free MP3 music downloads. At 94 cents per track and $9.22 per album, they are undercutting Apple’s [...]

Universal Music Group plans to test selling digital music free of digital rights management (DRM)….but not through Apple’s iTunes music store.
Tracks from thousands of albums will be available for purchase on the recording artists’ Web sites and through several established online music retailers, but not iTunes.
“Clearly the handwriting is on the wall for DRM-protected content,” [...]