Charlie Hunter DRM-Free Downloads

Charlie Hunter's rockin' new album Copperopolis came out a few weeks ago. We saw him perform the new stuff at his annual x-mas gig at Yoshi's, and it's a fun departure from his recent jazzy albums.

Hunter has a long history of offering free downloads of his live performances, and now he's selling DRM -free versions of his recent albums on his web site . Even better, he's got the pricing model just about right: Around 10 bucks for the album in MP3 or AAC format, and around 13 bucks for the album encoded in the lossless FLAC format.

Although I wish the MP3 version was a little cheaper, you've got to commend an artist for doing everything so right:

• Sell music online in DRM-free, unencrypted formats that work on all systems and portable players
• Don't charge full price for lossy compression schemes like MP3
• Offer music in lossless encoding formats (it is the future of online music)

Charlie Hunter Trio - Copperopolis

(Some online music services also get it - take a peek at AllOfMP3.com and eMusic.com)