eMusic delivers 200 million MP3s

eMusic which has long been considered the 2nd most popular music service after iTunes in the US has just after serving over 200 million MP3s free of DRM since its launch November 2003.  It has also served 40 million MP3s since Amazon's MP3 store opening.  Unlike iTunes, eMusic works as a subscription where users can download up to a fixed number of MP3s per month.  But unlike other music subscription services, the music is free of DRM and time-restrictions and can be played on any MP3 player, including the iPod, even long after the user ends its subscription.

There is a bit of a dispute at the moment between whether eMusic or AmazonMP3 is at the number 2 spot.  At present eMusic claims its subscribers download around 7 million songs per month, that it is the number one site for independent music and that no other music download service apart from iTunes sells more music than eMusic.  On the other hand, the four major record labels claim that Amazon's MP3 store has quietly become the number 2 in digital download sales in this USA Today report, but eMusic's CEO Pakman says in his blog that eMusic's subscription model was not taken into account.  Unfortunately, there is no simple way of telling who is really is at the #2 spot unless Amazon releases MP3 sales figures. 

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With the growing popularity of Amazon's MP3 service, eMusic and other new DRM-free stores, hopefully it will not take long for MP3 sales to supersede DRM-protected sales.  If this happens, it will be sure proof to the music labels that DRM-free music should have been the way from the very start and that maybe they would have not lost as many former customers and sales by crippling their digital downloads and past music CDs with copy protection systems.  

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