Every reader of this blog knows that I'm a big fan of the DRM-free music service eMusic. I'm happy to see that I'm not at all alone. The rag that defined the term "mainstream national paper", USAToday, has a full feature write up on eMusic, and how the popularity of eMusic is being driven by the stubborn-headed efforts of Apple and Microsoft to sew-up the DRM market.
"Consumers are responding: eMusic has quietly climbed into second place to iTunes, albeit with an 11% market share to iTunes' 67%, according to market tracker the NPD Group. The company sells monthly subscriptions, and those numbers have doubled since December, to 200,000. The company averages downloads of 5 million songs monthly."
Some sources in the article claim that DRM is the only thing holding the music business together. The CEO of classical music label and DRM free service Naxos, Jim Sturgeon offers, what is in my opinion, a much more apt view, "The majors have caused themselves nothing but grief with DRM," says Sturgeon. "What are they protecting? Any kid can figure out how to get around it. What they are really saying is, 'I don't trust my consumer.' "
