The Infinite Dial

So Universal Music Group has announced that it will sell non-copy-protected downloads--but not on iTunes Music Store.

Earlier, UMG had gotten a lot of publicity for not renewing its deal with ITMS. According to reports, it will continue to sell there, but test non-protected MP3 downloads elsewhere. As noted when the deal first broke, I've bought a lot of UMG music on-line over the last few years and would hate to lose the exhaustiveness of their catalog.

That said, I do resent the copy protections of iTMS, more on theory than anything else--I haven't yet had occasion to burn any song I own more than five times. I also don't like that every now and then, iTunes decides not to transfer songs that I've long paid for to my iPod as a way of forcing me to update my software.

But I like the one-stop convenience of iTMS. Thus far, I haven't shopped much for digital music elsewhere, only because I rarely feel like I will find anything different. And if, as with EMI, the unprotected files are an excuse for a price bump, I'd rather pay 99 cents for the protected file.