Apple today launched iTunes Plus, offering DRM-free music tracks with 256 kbps AAC encoding, for audio quality almost as good as the original recordings, for just $1.29 per song.
iTunes Plus is launching with EMI’s digital catalog of recordings, including singles and albums from Coldplay, The Rolling Stones, Norah Jones, Frank Sinatra, Joss Stone, Pink Floyd, [...]

Amazon.com today announced it will launch a digital music store later this year offering millions of songs in the DRM-free MP3 format from more than 12,000 record labels, including EMI. Every song and album in the Amazon.com digital music store will be available exclusively in the MP3 format without digital rights management (DRM) software.Amazon’s announcement [...]

EMI has beat Apple to the punch, releasing The Good, The Bad & The Queen, an album by Gorillaz’ Damon Albarn’s latest supergroup as a DRM-free download.
It’s the first EMI album to be offered for legal download in mp3 format, free of copy protection.
For the first time, downloads by EMI artists purchased from any online [...]

Apple CEO Steve Jobs posted a surprising statement on the company’s site yesterday, challenging the music industry to abandon DRM (copy protection) on digital music downloads.Jobs outlines three possible futures for digital music:

Continue as is it is now, with each manufacturer competing freely with their own “top to bottom” proprietary systems for selling, playing and [...]

RIAA Mix - Bring on da Noise! Bring on da Funk! Claire Chanel and Scary Sherman finally figured out what is up with those crazy, noise-filled downloads that are flooding peer-to-peer networks. They are cutting edge noise-art, courtesy of the RIAA.
Claire Chanel and Scary Sherman have been keeping busy. First they put together the Jay-Z [...]

Downhill Battle is more than just a diatribe against the RIAA.
It’s hip, funny, and effective in the way it explains how the major labels work, how artists get screwed, and how there is an alternative.
The site has a great photo essay about printing & distributing major label warning stickers. It documents distributing 2,000 anti-RIAA stickers…at [...]