"After years of selling online music digitally wrapped with copy and playback restrictions designed to hinder piracy, major music labels are beginning to make some songs available in the unrestricted MP3 file format. The releases are part of an experiment to gauge demand for tracks that can be played on any digital music player capable of playing MP3s, one of the oldest music compression formats. Normally, copy-protected tracks are only playable on certain devices. By selling MP3s, recording companies can ensure they can be played on Apple Computer Inc.'s market-leading iPod players without going through Apple's iTunes Music Store."If this is a sign of things to come, this is great news - I'm reluctant to get too excited about it yet though, because the big music companies have always found a way to screw up, so I'm waiting to hear that they're going to use MP3 Pro or something and require unique software to play...