DRM-Free Tunes on Sale at Wal-Mart

The retail giant just began selling digital music free from copy protection today, at just 94 cents per song, versus $1.29/song on iTunes. Let the DRM-free price wars begin!

Reuters is reporting that Wal-Mart's DRM-free music store is selling thousands of songs from labels such as EMI (which signed a DRM-free pact with Apple last April) and Universal Music (which recently announced that it was entering the DRM-free music fray, although not on iTunes). Even better, the copy protection-free tracks will go for just 94 cents a song, compared to the $1.29 premium that Apple is charging for its DRM-free music on iTunes.

Wal-Mart's new DRM-free music store will include tracks by artists such as the Rolling Stones, Amy Winehouse, and Maroon 5, according to Reuters, and you'll be able to snap up entire albums for $9.22 in addition to the 94 cents/song pricing scheme.

While I'm not exactly a huge Wal-Mart fan, I'd be more than happy to see retail behemoth force Apple to lower its own DRM-free music prices. While Apple and EMI deserve credit for opening the door to legit sales of copy protection-free music, the decision to raise DRM-free prices on iTunes to $1.29/song (compared to the standard 99-cents-a-song price for copy-protected tunes) seems wrong-headed, at best.

Update: In even more DRM-free news, Engadget is reporting that Universal has launched its "test" with Rhapsody, offering a limited selection of DRM-free songs from its catalog for 99 cents a song (or 89 cents/song for Rhapsody subscribers).

Related:
Wal-Mart selling digital music free of copy curbs [Yahoo! News/Reuters]