eMusic

A few months ago I received 50 free downloads from eMusic.com as part of a promotion. I at first assumed that, like most non-iTunes digital music download stores, the music available at the store would be in Windows Media Format and would be completely unplayable on my Mac and similarly un-transferrable to my iPod. Boy, was I wrong in the best way.

eMusic sells regular MP3 files that are not protected with Digital Rights Management (DRM). Because of this the songs can be played with ANY digital music software and used on ANY digital music device without restriction.

As expected, the major music labels don't want to sell unprotected music. Subsequently, eMusic doesn't have most major label music. It does, however, have a large selection of independent artists. I was easily able to find 50 tracks to download, between Aimee Mann, Badly Drawn Boy, Grandaddy, The Presidents of the United States of America, and some nifty compilations.

The recording industry is bemoaning the fact that Apple's proprietary copy-protection is hurting the digital music market (See Apple May Be Holding Back The Music Biz) but the reality is that ANY copy-protection is bad for consumers and makes everything incompatible. The labels want Apple to open up their system to their competitors, but if they would simply allow the music to be sold without copy protection, it would be compatible with everything and they wouldn't have this problem.

At least one person is paying attention:
Yahoo exec: Labels should sell music without DRM

And, of course, the CEO of eMusic agrees
eMusic's Pakman: Does he think the iPod is holding back overall music sales?

Pakman does emphasize a factor that is very much in keeping with the dominant theme in your comments: that the music industry would be far better off if it dropped its demands for DRM entirely