iTunes Wants $250 To Upgrade My Music Collection (Or the Deal's Off)

I knew I had a full-blown music-purchasing problem when I went to "upgrade" my iTunes collection—raising the quality and stripping the pestilential DRM—and the grand total came to an all-or-nothing $250. More »

Sandisk Replaces CDs With SlotMusic MicroSDs With Big-Name MP3 Albums Aboard

Sandisk's slotMusic cards are not much more than tweaked 1GB microSD cards with a logo and a special USB-compatible sled: but the fact that they'll carry albums from big names like BMI Music, Sony BMG, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music Group makes them interesting. They'll also be DRM free too, which is a pleasant surprise. It's an attempt to change the way some people buy MP3s—you'll get a card you can slot into your cellphone or PC with high-quality MP3s (up to 320kbps), artwork, videos and such, which you can also reuse as a 1GB memory card later, and that's kinda handy. More »

Verizon Gets Rhapsody Subscriptions, DRM-Free Downloads

Verizon customers with certain VCAST phones have some new options for buying music, thanks to Rhapsody. First off, the $15 per month, all-the-songs-you-can-guzzle subscription service is offered on LG's Decoy and Dare, Moto's W755 and Samsung's SCH-u550, Glyde, and Juke, and will be available for the Chocolate 3 when it's out. Also, $2 over-the-air download tracks now come with a DRM-free MP3 version that you can snag on your computer with VCAST/Rhapsody software. If you can hold your horses and wait till you're on a PC to download, DRM-free tracks are yours for a buck, which can be sideloaded onto the phone like usual. Press release after the jump. [Verizon] More »