Last week, Napster announced that they would be releasing their entire freaking catalog in 256k MP3 format for only $.99 per track. That’s over 6 million songs without any DRM protection; you get to do whatever you want with the file. Put it on your iPod, put it on your Sansa, put it on your phone, copy it to 20 computers … it’s yours. It’s like iTunes, only less expensive, and without the hardware lock-in or DRM copy protection.
Clocking in at $.30 per track less than iTunes’ DRM-free MP3s and about the same as Amazon’s offerings, this isn’t a bad deal. Could it be that the music industry is finally starting to realize that when we buy it, it should be ours?