Wal-Mart offer DRM-free music

Wal-Mart is joining other large organisations in offering DRM-free music downloads from its online store. Joining Viacom’s MTV Networks and RealNetwork joint effort, along with LimeWire’s proposed online music store, Wal-Mart is the latest in a line of corporations wishing to cash in on what is clearly a very lucrative market. Unlike many of the bigger corporations, though, Wal-Mart do not intend on lacing the tracks with privacy-infringing DRM.

Apple attempted to do the same with iTunes, but there is a price to pay. Literally. The iTunes catalogue markup amounts to an almost 30% increase over standard rates. Also, as we reported earlier, it’s arguable that iTunes tracks do in fact contain DRM since they include users’ names and passwords. Apple’s justification is that DRM-free tracks are higher quality at 256kbps, rather than the 128kbps iTunes that are ‘polluted’ with DRM.

Wal-Mart’s prices are looking to be around 94 cents per track – less than the going rate – and these are also at 256kbps quality. Files including Microsoft’s DRM ‘feature’ are cheaper at around 88 cents per track.

Hopefully this will offer some healthy compeition to the corporations and especially to iTunes, all of whom seem to be sitting on their laurels as far as accepting music downloads as a legitimate market (rather than the monopoly that Apple seem to be viewing it as).

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