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Paul McCartney Releases Album As DRM-Free Download
Medieval Cow writes "Sir Paul McCartney has a side project called The Fireman and he's just released their new album, Electric Arguments, as a digital download. Why this is of interest to this community is that he released it 100% DRM-free. You can purchase just the digital files, or if you purchase a physical CD or vinyl copy, you are also given access to the digital download. Not only that, but the download is available in 320-kbps MP3, Apple Lossless, or even FLAC format. If you're interested in trying before you buy, you can listen to the entire album in a Flash player on the main page of the site. It's so nice to see a big musician who gets it. Bravo, Sir Paul!"
Actually Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor played with the idea quite a lot.
He released Saul Williams' album, which he produced, under a "pay what you think is fair" scheme.
His conceptual album 'Ghost' was released 100% digitally & DRM free with the first (out of 4) CD freely distributed.
His last album "The Slip" is freely available for full download as a gift to the fan.
Most of his track material is released under the Creative Common scheme for the fans to remix, and he built a comunity site to support these. For all I know, he created the sourceforge of Music.
Nine Inch Nails is definetely a major band/artist too, and the first one of such importance to explore new way of distributing music.