There is a buzz in the blogosphere about legal music download services that are either being launched or expanded. Much of these news are fantastic for consumers and suggests the music industry has figured out the True Path to Consumer Happiness.Anyone who loves music and doesn’t pirate or trade in pirated music will appreciate the value of a music download site that permits legal downloads of their favourite songs and albums. Much of this content is protected by something called digital rights management software (also known as DRM) which limits what you can do with the music. In the case of iTunes the built in DRM means you can only play the content on authorised devices. It is also only available in a limited list of countries.A growing trend is the sale of DRM-free music in the popular mp3 format. The big benefit of this music is that you can buy the music and play it on your iPod, mobile phone, burn it to a CD or play it on your computer or any other device that supports the mp3 format.Another idea is to allow users to download music for free using ad supported models so the purveyor of fine music downloads earns money through ads and dutifully funnels some of that cash to the recording industry bigwigs. Everyone gets their share of what everyone hopes will be a really large amount of money flowing from music sales or ad supported downloads.

from blogs.thetimes.co.za