Push Apple aside for a moment and say hello to a whole new era of free music, Rhapsody has just opened the doors to a new DRM free MP3 store thanks to Verizon Wireless, the question is “Can Verizon Wireless challenge Apple?

Ok possibly not but hey it is worth a though now, Apple of course are the main dominance when it comes to the world of digital music and with the Verizon Wireless new DRM-free music initiative this should indeed boost up its mobile data business and widen or should we say broaden the market beyond the likes of iTunes. These music companies have tried their hardest to protect the music for their artists and of course record labels profit, the DRM copy protection on digital music was supposed to help this but today we see that giants Rhapsody have launched a DRM-free MP3 store, and what better way to promote this new service by giving the first 100,000 people to sign-up a free album until July 4th.

The new stores MP3’s will only cost $.99 per track and $9.99 per album, they are all encoded in 256kpbs CBR and this is near enough CD quality. Just so you know, because this music is DRM free it means you are able to copy them to CD’s, iPods, PCs and just about any other media as many times as you please, surely this means that DRM copy protection will be non-existent. Also if you are with the mobile phone carriers Verizon Wireless service you will be able to download music to you mobile phone, this is all thanks to the versions of the Rhapsody store being on them phones. Apple iTunes is big business there is no doubting that, it would be stupid to doubt it but and a big but with the likes of this new service surely it means a good competitor is now standing in line to compete. Another important question to ask has to be “How many of you iTunes customers will move over to this new service?

The new service includes:
– Buying non-protected MP3s of songs on the PC for 99 cents per song
– Burning, importing and converting CDs to play anywhere
– Creating and accessing playlists, viewing playlists of other users, including celebrities
– Buying songs on the phone, over-the-air get two copies of the song for $1.99 (one is over-the-air, the second master copy is the file customers download onto their PCs)
– Unlimited subscription syncing with access to more than 5 million songs
– Managing an existing digital music collection for free and syncing it to their mobile phones

Check out the all new rhapsody.com/mp3

Source — product-reviews.net