I recently posted on the issues with DRM. Now amazon.com has released amazonmp3 which provides DRM free mp3s. Not only are they pure mp3s, but a better quality than available in iTunes.
This is a huge step forward for all the anti-DRM movement. You can use any of the music on any music device without any problems, legally. On top of that its from a company most people know and trust, amazon. This is the first real competitor to iTunes that could do some damage.
One of the issues that most people are afraid of with moving away from the itunes store is getting the music imported into itunes. All of their current music is there and they use an ipod, so they don’t want to move away. Amazon has done something really neat here, they have a little application which will download and import the music into itunes for you. For the most part it will look just like if you bought the CD and imported it into itunes yourself. It will have the album art and all.
If you are leery of buying music from anywhere than from itunes I suggest trying amazonmp3. It is from a large enough company that we know they are trustworthy. If you do have any problems with the service I would like to hear about it. If you shoot me over an email I would be happy to help you out. I know that I am a geek and look over the small stuff, so I want to hear about any problems others have with it.
