Free Music Downloads, Sans DRM
WE7 is a new download service offering free music with no DRM copy protection whatsoever. What the hell? How is this possible? By tacking a "relevant" advertisement onto the beginning of each song. The service is backed by pop legend, former Genesis frontman and Mr. Sledgehammer himself, Peter Gabriel. The service hopes to bring those who would normally download from an illegal sharing site or service back into the legal fold by offering songs for free without restrictions on sharing, but still getting the artists get paid. Users can still choose to buy a song at the regular price of £.99 ($1.97) to avoid the advertisements all together. But, if you're cheap or poor and just want your free music, you are not stuck with the ad's forever. After four weeks you have the option to remove the advertisements from the song. The bad news here? You can only remove the advertisements from 20 tracks a month.Though all of this is still up in the air, at the bottom of WE7's We site is a passage that basically says just because this is how it works now, doesn't mean this is how it's going to work tomorrow.
WE7 does have its first major partner, V2, home to Bloc Party, Grandaddy, Cold War Kids, Gang of Four, Tom Ze, and Underworld. The label's entire back catalog will be available for free via WE7 in the near future.
From Shiny Shiny
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