Rhapsody Courts Apple Crowd with DRM-Free MP3s

Rhapsody, a digital music subscription service, is now offering MP3 downloads with no digital rights management (DRM) restrictions.

Rhapsody’s subscription service remains under digital rights protection, but Reuters says the company is looking to expand its reach into the Apple-dominated music sector by making its downloads compatible with iPods.

Amazon, Wal-Mart and Napster also offer DRM-free MP3 downloads, but to date no company has challenged Apple’s iPod/iTunes model. An industry analyst offers Reuters one potential explanation for Apple’s dominance, and it has nothing to do with DRM:

[Apple’s] success has been due partly to a seamless interface between iTunes and the iPod and because it provides a good user experience, said analyst David Card of Jupiter Research.

(Via New York Post)

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