This has been a big year for changes in the music industry. A number of significant events have occurred that indicate the scales are tipping in favor of the consumer. That’s good news for consumers and artists in my opinion. And believe it or not I think it will be good for record labels because I feel that the resulting changes will mean that more digital music will be sold than ever.

• iTunes Plus offers DRM-free music downloads at a premium price.
• The Prince free cd giveaway in Britain. Dubbed “washed up” with “a diminishing fan base” by some tool named Duncan Riley at TechCrunch this proved to be an awesome move. First off, Prince got paid about $500,000 for the licensing rights to the CD. Secondly, millions of new people got to experience a Prince album. Third, The Mail sold an extra 600,000 newspapers as a result of the promotion. Finally it was recently announced that Prince has 21 sold out shows at the Millenium Dome in London. Not bad for a washed up performer with a diminishing fan base. Everyone wins and that’s the way it should be.
• Walmart opened a DRM-free section in their digital music store. Too bad it only works on Internet Explorer. Another brick out of the wall just the same.
• Amazon funded MP3 music promoter Amie Street and then opened up an MP3 music store of their own. This one does work on Firefox!
• Recently emancipated Radiohead is calling the shots on distribution of their new album. They are now letting fans decide how much to pay for the new album, In Rainbows. Are they crazy? I don’t think so. I’ll bet that the record labels would fall over themselves to find out what kind of pricing patterns result from this interesting ‘experiment’.
• Old school, new school online CD seller CD Baby is now offering companion MP3 downloads for all artists in their digital distribution program. Downloads are in zip format and include the entire album.

There’s a lot more going on than this but I think you get the picture. I can’t remember a year in the past when so many forces came together to change the way music was distributed and consumed. These changes are good for everyone. I look forward to following along and buying as much high quality untethered music as my budget will allow.