Ministry Of Sound has launched a brand spanking new download platform offering music fans access to over 60,000 dance music downloads from 2000 record labels. However, the service is making music available exclusively in the iPod friendly and DRM-free MP3 file format, which means, of course, no music from the four major record companies, who still insist on the use of DRM, will be available via the service. Ministry hope that the majors will eventually get over their DRM obsession and come on board with MP3 services like theirs. I suspect they'll be waiting a long time - though for a dance based service the lack of major label content probably isn't so noticeable.
Lohan Presencer, Managing Director of The Ministry of Sound Group, told CMU: "We will be making available the widest choice of digital dance music found anywhere on the web and we are insisting on all the music we sell being DRM free because quite simply we want to make it easy for consumers to access, store and play it. We hope the major record companies will start making DRM free products available because at present they are severely restricting consumer choice. Since, however, dance music is primarily the domain of the independent sector anyway it makes little difference to our already fantastic offering."
The new service has been developed in partnership with existing dance music download store djdownload.com, and will also include a range of competitions and editorial content.