Our Digital Music

Ya gotta love the power of blogging.  When you get it even a little bit wrong somebody – in this case the mega-company itself – is gonna correct you.
I posted earlier in the week regarding Rhapsody’s new MP3 Directory designed to make it easier to find which songs they are offering DRM-free.  While I applauded the move I noted that it was not as easy as one would like to find mp3’s in the general Rhapsody music storefront.  Matt Grave’s of Rhapsody’s parent company Real wrote to say:
“…there actually is a way to see if a song you’re looking for …read more

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On the Apple website CEO Steve Jobs is promising $100 Apple gift certificates to angry customers who bought iPhones in the two months since they have been introduced. Apparently hundreds of emails flooded the company from folks upset that they had paid $200 more then the new prices announced on Wednesday.
If you’re one of the poor souls (I mean “early adopters”) sucked into paying too much, you can find out more about where and when to collect here from Jobs himself.
 
“We want to do the right thing for our valued iPhone customers. We apologize for disappointing some of you, …read more

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Microsoft cut prices on all Zune portable music and video players by $50 or more  just in time for Christmas .  The player, which those who buy it love according to surveys, lags far behind in sales to the dominant iPod.

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The highlights of Apple’s major Wednesday product announcement:

A new ringtone store for the iPhone
New iPod models with bigger hard drives, more features and lower pricing:

iPod Shuffle ($79), iPod Nano ($149, $199), iPod Classic, ($249, $349), ams iPhone like iPod
Touch creen playerwith WiFi ($299, $399) ,and lower iPhone prices (8GB model dropped $200  to $399)

A new iTunes Wifi Music Store for over the air downloads to enabled mobile devices.

 Free access to the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store while at Starbucks.

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Check back tomorrow afternoon or Thursday morning for some big announcements from Apple including additions to their iPod line and probably a ringtone store. We should also have news of a new Zune and other players set to debut before Christmas.

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It’s a confusing time for digital music consumers who want to buy music free of DRM.
More and more services from iTunes to Yahoo! are selling tracks without copy protection. (Napster is a hold-out for now.) But every store has a different mix of DRM-free music from different labels in different formats at different prices. Most services sprinkle their DRM free offerings throughout their storefront usually labeling them as DRM-free.
Rhapsody has tried to simplify this process with a new section dubbed The MP3 Directory. By browsing through the alphabetical listings listings you can see what Rhapsody at least is offering …read more

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>>> Amazon will finally launch its DRM-free download store in mid-September.  Expect lower prices than iTunes on older releases and mp3’s from EMI, Universal and hundreds of indie labels, but nothing from Warner Music Group (Warner, Atlantic, Sire and dozens of other labels) or Sony/BMG (Coloumbia, Sony, BMG, RCA and  more).
>>>  Sony is shutting down its Connect Music store and adopting Microsoft’s DRM platform for its new line of Walkmen.
>>> Legendary Long Island, NY indie music store Looney Tunes was destroyed in a fire, but the owners promise to rebuild
>>> EMI Chairmen Eric Nicoli is out as investment firm …read more

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