Warner Music signs agreement with 7digital.com

For a number of people the most irritating issue when buying music online is that it frequently comes with some form of Digital Rights Management (DRM) which can limit what people do with the music. The major disadvantage to this is that material downloaded for one MP3 player may have to be re-bought if you purchase a dissimilar portable music player so that you can copy the tracks onto it once more.

Consequently Warner Music has agreed a deal with 7digital.com which means music you purchase in the UK, Ireland, Spain, France and Germany from the website will not contain embedded DRM. This enlarges the number of devices tracks will be playable on too given that not all music playback devices support DRM enabled material and could perhaps persuade more people to download a paid for track as opposed than ripping it from a friends CD or downloading it via the Internet.

7digital.com additionally offers material from EMI and is, according to the grapevine, in discussions with Sony BMG and Universal according to the BBC News Online item. Tracks cost 79p each, although this decreases when buying a whole album, for example, The Young Knives Superabundance album with 12 tracks plus interview costs £7.49. The site furthermore has a quantity of free music and video clips that can be downloaded.