I just noticed that one of my favorite Industrial bands, Project Pitchfork, is offering a downloadable version of their latest album “Kaskade” for sale, in addition to the usual CD edition. Apparently the downloaded version consists of high quality 192kbps MP3 files without DRM or anything. A PDF version of the cover is included as well.
At $9.99, the price is reasonable (the current price for the CD at Amazon is $15.98), but I’d like to see this drop closer to $5. Still, this is definitely a step in the right direction and I wish more bands would go this route. Downloadable music on iTunes or similar sites is not an option for me, as I refuse to pay for DRM-crippled music.
(On the down side, the Project Pitchfork homepage uses menus that don’t work in Firefox… You’ll have to use IE to use these. The Shop itself, which is hosted by MusicDock, works fine in Firefox.)