Top 5 Sites For DRM-Free Music Plus 2 Dishonorable Mentions
1. Amazon – All DRM free – all the time. 2.3 million mp3’s from EMI and Universal and a ton of indies at variable prices from $.89 to $.99 with most albums from $4.99 to $9.99.
Blame selection problems on the labels; not Amazon.
2. eMusic – Until Amazon, these guys were #1, but with some labels leaving and competitors expanding, how long will eMusic stay #2? For now, you have to subscribe and won’t find any major labels; but if you like indie music you can’t beat $.33 per song or less …which of course is why some labels are leaving.
3. WalMart – Yup, WalMart.com. There’s no indie product available (and they can’t blame shelf space), but lots of tracks from both EMI and Universal and most of them are priced at a low $.88.
4. Real/Rhapsody – These guys do music subscriptions and streaming better than anyone. On the DRM-free front, however, you’ll only find limited major label mp3’s. But their CEO was brave enough to be the first to publicaly call for DRM free and with the recent partnership with MTV, you can expect interesting changes ahead.
Next time Hypebot publishes this list Rhapsody could be #3 or even #2.
5. 7Digital – I’d rank this innovative UK digital retailer in the Top 2 or 3 if they would just add purchases in US dollars and perhaps euros. But more than half of their extensive catalog is in mp3’s with lots of unique offerings. Worth a look even if you get slammed by your credit card company for the conversion.
DISHONORABLE MENTIONS –
iTunes – Way back in February Steve Jobs railed against DRM and called on record labels to drop it. Now 8 months later iTunes has made virtually no indie product available DRM-free and the major label label it does sell without copy protection is in the less than universal AAC format.
Napster – No DRM free product at all. When asked why ,they said they’d change when enough was available so that multiple formats didn’t confuse the customer. But Amazon and eMusic each found than 2 million+ DRM-free tracks, and WalMart and Rhapsody found ways to inform consumers.
Can you add any honorable or dishonorable mentions? What are your favorite places to purchase DRM free downloads?
our label’s payout (if you can call it that) from Napster Germany is 1 cent per song !
amiestreet.com
I am pretty sure David Goldberg from Yahoo was speaking out against DRM before Rob Glaser was.
http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-6042756-7.html
Also, Yahoo experimented with non-DRM first with a Jessica Simpson track around the same time.
http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/21/yahoo-offering-up-an-unrestricted-1-99-mp3-download/
emusic is my favorite musical outlet for mp3s, but since I still like the pysical products, I really wish I would of shopped more at anywhereCD.com and that they could continue while obtaining more licensing. On their last day I bought a few albums @ $7.00 and it was nice having the mp3s online ready for me.
I’d love to see a summary like this of what these services charge independent artists for their services…any chance of that?
Great comments from all as usual.
As for the label getting 1 cents from Napster…that must be for streaming not download. If I’m wrong give me the details and I promise a story.
On what the services pay indie artists all are about the same except eMusic. The rest pay about 60-65 cents and then it depends on what cut your digital distriubtor takes from sero (Tunecore) to 30% the Orchard.
Vil Vodka’s comments are right on as always.
Does the Orchard really take 30%? I thought the standard take for aggregators was 10-15%. 30% seems really high…..
All deals are negotiable but some indie artists and small labels were (at least recently) charged 30% by The Orchard.
Zunior.com is an excellent indie Canadian store. They’re targeting more of a specialty market than the others listed. They only sell full albums, but it’s all DRM free in either MP3 or lossless FLAC and comes with complete artwork in PDF, not just a cover image.
Only one site has the largest collection of DRM-free music in WMA lossless and that is MusicGiants. Why is everyone still settling for lesser quality formats? You have a choice.