Amazon dropped a bomb today by announcing it would drop digital rights restrictions on music downloads when it launches an online music store later this year. It’s the latest in a series of blows to DRM, and signals a larger shift in the music industry.

For those that don’t know, Digital Rights Management is protective coding placed on files to keep them from being pirated. Remember, a couple of years ago all of the big majors took a hard line in support of DRM, but in the last several months that unanimity has frayed. EMI announced it would begin selling music downloads without DRM (albeit at a higher price), while Warner and Universal are currently testing selling music without DRM. read more

The New York Times Magazine had an interesting piece over the weekend on how musicians are building new distribution networks and fan bases via the Internet.

The piece kicks off by profiling Jonathan Coulton, a former computer programmer and unsigned Brooklyn indie artist who is making a “reasonable middle class living” by selling CDs and music downloads via his web site, iTunes, and CD Baby. Coulton built a fan base by recording a song a week for all of 2006 and then posting them on his blog. They ranged from odes to Tom Cruise (“Tom Cruise Crazy”) to pieces about the dead-end life of a programmer (“Code Monkey”). read more

A lot of ink is spilled on the declining fortunes of music industry. It seems like every other day a new report shows album sales are down for this period or in that country. In the wake of all the doom and gloom, the always informative Digital Music News posted an interesting report showing the sky isn’t exactly falling everywhere.

The researcher eMarketer is projecting revenues in the North American music industry sector will grow at a rate of 2.8 percent annually between now and 2o11. Revenues will climb from $23.1 billion to $26.5 billion largely on the strength of live concerts and publishing. eMarketer also predicts mobile and digital assets will offset decreases in physical sales. read more

Just a quick reminder that tonight (Monday, May 7), the Philadelphia Chapter of the Recording Academy is hosting a screening of the documentary Before the Music Dies. The movie tells the story of American music at a precarious moment when just a handful of companies dominate the radio waves and the retail racks. Filmmakers Andrew Shapter and Joel Rasmussen traveled the country, hoping to understand why mainstream music seems so packaged and repetitive, and whether corporations really had the power to silence musical innovation. Widely-praised and award-winning, the movie includes interview lots of musicians, industry folks and fans. read more

About 170 people turned out for the “Music, Technology and IP Policy Day” on Wednesday making it a great event in our estimation (if not always the most comfortable — sorry to the people that had to stand for some of the panels). Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Penn., opened the conference with an unusual shout out for smash up artist Girl Talk. He then proceeded to give a wide ranging speech covering net neutrality, media consolidation. He got a round of applause after making the following comment: read more