I mentioned the scourge of DRM in the past and it’s interesting to see that things are developing. For one thing, I’ve really taken to Magnatune after Amarok added the plugin and the other day I purchased this album (apparently 10% of the sales through amarok go to the amarok project, neat). Defectivebydesign.org publishes a list of non-DRM music stores which is very handy. Apparently, eMusic sells songs for 25c to iTunes’s 99c and without DRM, I might just register over there and look around.

Another most welcome development is iriver deciding to abandom the DRM on their mp3 players, which places them back in my good graces. Their newest players state the system requirements as Windows 98SE/ME/2000/XP, no more Windows Media Player baloney. Which means that when the time comes to replace my ifp 895, I probably will go with a third iriver. And that’s five sales in all, including recommendations I’ve given to other people.

And here’s a very well written article about why DRM is bad, including an instructive video by the people at Defectivebydesign.org. Last but not least, Lawrence Lessig’s lecture on free culture and the evolution of cultural freedoms.

If you’re more into books than music, Telltale Weekly has a collection of cheap audiobooks you can download in mp3 format. Some are indeed free, and if you read my impressions on Kafka’s Metamorphosis on this blog in the future, you’ll know why.

Finally, this isn’t a DRM issue, but it’s closely connected to it. Record companies lament about losing money lately, and they try to make you care about their profits by saying that the artists you love are not getting paid for their work. Well apparently, it’s true that artists aren’t being paid, but that this is not a recent development, and has little to do with profits and all to do with their corporate policies. In contrast, Magnatune (and possibly others) pay artists 50% of every sale, so for those who care about artists, it’s a pretty good incentive to shop there instead.