If you abhor the fact that most of the mp3s being sold online have DRM, well then this tidbit of news might be able to make you guys smile. 7digital.com has just announced that they will be offering DRM-free MP3s from Warner Music International, a division of the Warner Music Group.

In fact, 7digital.com is the first major European download store to offer people in UK, Ireland, Spain, France, and Germany, mp3 downloads from Warner Music. Eighty percent of the total 3.5 million tracks from 7digital.com is now MP3, alongside formats such as WMA and AAC.

What’s great about this is that these songs that can be downloaded can be readily played in various MP3 players, including the world-famous iPod.

With this latest offering, Ben Drury, CEO of 7digital.com, said

7digital.com is excited to be Warner Music’s first major partner in Europe to bring MP3s to the marketplace. Our 1.2 million registered customer base has proved to us that MP3s sell very well and MP3 is currently the format of choice for digital media consumers.

7digital.com is committed to becoming the destination for MP3s and we plan to make our entire music catalogue available in DRM-free, high-quality MP3 format by summer 2008.

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Quite unsurprisingly, Apple’s online music retailer store iTunes ranked as the second biggest music retailer in the U.S., according to NPD Group’s 2007 sales count. iTune’s sales accounted to a six percent increase in digital music sales, aside from the video and movie content available in iTunes.

The sales increase has attributed to a decline in CD sales, however. According to Reuters, about a million audiophiles in the U.S. stopped buying music CDs in favor of digital downloads last year. This change of media preference pulled the music industry’s performance down by 10 percent.

Apple’s popular music retail store currently serves about 50 million customers, and digital music downloads make up about 10 percent of music sales in the United States. Approximately four billion songs were bought and downloaded from iTunes.

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Online retailer Play.com has launched a new MP3 download service called PlayDigital. The store now sells digital music tracks without DRM (digital rights management) copy protection, in a move it is describing as “taking on iTunes in the UK”.

All of the downloads available at PlayDigital will be in the MP3 file format. This is the most common format for digital audio, so that the widest possible range of computer media players and portable music players will be compatible with the music you download.

The top 100 tracks will cost from 65p per track and albums from £4.99. Play.com said albums in the top 100 would be available £1 cheaper than on Apple’s download service, iTunes.

Now you will be able to download DRM free music onto your iPod or any other MP3 player.

Apple has filed an application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office seeking trademark protection in relation to a variety of gaming products. On the application, Apple requests protection of its “Apple” trademark for products that include “Toys, games and playthings, namely, hand-held units for playing electronic games; hand-held units for playing video games; stand alone video game machines; electronic games other than those adapted for use with television receivers only; LCD game machines; electronic educational game machines; toys, namely battery-powered computer games.” Apple currently sells iPod games through the iTunes Store, several of which were developed internally by the company.

There have been rumors going around that Apple is planning to delve into the video game market even further by coming up with its own platform, either in the form of a console or a handheld device.

Apple, even up to now, has remained mum on the matter but it seems that the rumors have a basis after all. One search at the database of Trademark Applications and Registrations Retrieval website will yield a patent dated February 5, 2008.

The said patent tells of new “goods and services” that are describe as the following:

• Toys, games and playthings, namely, handheld units for playing electronic games
• Handheld units for playing video games
• Stand alone video game machines
• Electronic games other than those adapted for use with television receivers only
• LCD game machines
• Electronic educational game machines
• Toys, namely battery-powered computer games

Given the success of mobile gadgets iPhone and iPod Touch, it seems that a portable gaming device from Apple is going to be a sure hit among its loyal fans. While the company has yet to give an official comment, Sony and Nintendo better look after their market as early as now.

Even though Apple’s stock prices are in the slumps, iTunes usage is certainly not! Website Optimization posted that iTunes has surpassed RealPlayer usage in terms of online streaming — for the first time in history. They cite that iTunes was the only online streaming player that had a positive growth over year 2007. Here’s how the online players break down as of December 2007:

• iTunes - 35,664
• QuickTime - 12,787
• RealPlayer - 27,565
  
• Windows Media Player - 75,865

iTunes is now the second most popular streaming player behind Windows Media Player. Web Optimization also stated that iTunes has an annual growth of about 26.8%. There’s no doubt that we will hear about this more when Steve takes the stage at a future music-related event.

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If you live outside the US and simply can’t get enough of music, Amazon’s latest release would probably make you smile. On January 27, 2008, the Amazon MP3 was launched to begin rolling to foreign shores this year.

With over 3.3 million songs to choose from, it’s enough music to last a whole lifetime. The songs found in their collection are compatible with most digital music-capable device, the PC, MAC, iPod, Zune, Zen, iPhone, RAZR, and even BlackBerry.

Don’t worry about the cost when getting your music. Majority of the songs are priced from 89 cents to 99 cents. Most albums are price from US 5.99 to US$9.99. The top 100 albums are worth US 8.99 or less, unless marked otherwise.

Regarding this latest offer, Bill Carr, Amazon.com Vice President of Digital music said:

We have received thousands of e-mails from Amazon customers around the world asking us when we will make Amazon MP3 available outside of the U.S. They can’t wait to choose from the biggest selection of high-quality, low-priced DRM-free MP3 music downloads which play on virtually any music device they own today or will own in the future

We are excited to tell those customers today that Amazon MP3 is going international this year.

Amazon MP3, the world’s biggest collection of online songs, is now ready to take on the world with it services. If you want, feel free to check it out yourself.