Digital Home Thoughts: No More DRM for Apple

"The "Big Four"-Universal Music Group, Sony BMG, Warner Music Group, and EMI-all agreed that, effective today, they no longer need to encumber their artists' iTunes offerings with DRM. This means that you can give a friend a song you bought on iTunes-and it will actually play on his or her iPod!"

Well I have to give Apple credit. At today's Macworld keynote, Apple announced that DRM would be removed from iTunes music files; effective immediately for 8 million files, with the rest to be DRM-free within a few months. This is huge for the digital music marketplace. It takes away most of Amazon's competitive advantage and means other stores like Zune Marketplace and Rhapsody will need to scramble to get DRM removed from their music files as well.

Correction: Rhapsody's single-track download store is already all-MP3 and Microsoft signed agreements with Sony BMG and UMG last November. However, as of today, the Zune Marketplace still has a ways to go to get MP3s fully rolled out.