The End (of DRM) is near

[nightflier]

This may be old news, but it does look promising:

EMI is the first of the big four record labels to offer its entire catalog as DRM-free premium digital downloads (http://www.emigroup.com/Press/2007/press18.htm). Now if they'll only lower the price to something resembling a fair value, especially for non-top-40 stuff...

And for those in the computer industry, this may give additional heft to that new DRM-free Linux kernel.

[ericl]

it's exciting to me, 256k in AAC format sounds pretty good to me. I'd buy downloads in that format. That's what i rip most of my music to. the rest is lossless. I think 256k is the best compromise between file size and sound quality.

[audio_dude]

agreed, my old iTunes downloads were well... ****. So I stopped buying them and ether torrented high quality tracks or bought the CD if I wanted more than 1 or 2 songs from it.

(BTW, P2P is legal in canada, so don't bash me for it ;))

[kexodusc]

Cool...I never use my wife's Ipod, and have never knowingly used AAC. I'm partial to FLAC and Ogg Vorbis, though most of my library is still in WMA (a remnant of the dark times, before I went ot war with Microsoft).
But any DRM-less movement is okay in my books. I hate any company that assumes all consumers are crooks and inconveniences the innocent in the name of "fair play".