Last week while everyone was busy playing taps for the Virgin Digital store, we got to thinking; How much money is disappearing into thin air as online music stores like Virgin -- which popped up faster than zits before prom night during recent years -- go belly up, leaving the game to its dominant player, Apple. In most cases, when a store like Virgin shutters, your DRM locked tracks are orphaned. Abandoned with no one left to phone home to, a method many players use check the validity of your right to listen to the music you could have sworn you bought and paid for.

It's a dirty little secret; Many DRM formats will simply die if their benefactor company stops paying the internet bill.

Maybe we should explain; When you cough up a buck for a digital track, you aren't really buying anything, rather you're leasing that music for as long as the store manages to stay open, and to support that particular DRM format. If the store disappears, or your DRM format falls victim to obsolescence, you can say goodbye to all those tunes you paid for. Virgin is encouraging users to do something for which they often chastised customers before, burn those tracks to CD and then rip them back to mp3.

Although audiophiles typically shun the low aural quality of digital downloads, even the most brain-dead consumer can hear the artifacts let behind by multi-generational compress and decompress cycle inflicted upon your music when you burn a compressed format back to CD, and then compress it again to mp3. Forget about the romantic pops and clicks of vinyl, those choked out highs and the loss of sonic integrity inflicted on a lowly digital download can drive you absolutely mad. In essence, if you paid or music from Virgin (or one of the many digital music stores who've gone under, or will soon enough) you've done nothing more than stuff quarters in a slightly more generous and portable version of the jukebox. Caveat emptor, indeed.

Aside from the many other detractions among the DRM list of features (vendor lock-in, rules that don't apply to conventional CDs, and those icky click-wrap agreements), the potential loss of all that music to the ether as stores go under should raise serious concerns for consumers; and possibly your state's attorney general. So how do you keep your digital music forever, and save those real-world dollars in the process?

Coca-Cola and Apple are partnering to give away 2 billion (yes, that's with a "b") iTunes music downloads between May and August. Coca-Cola will pick up most of the bill for all of the tracks users download.

Coke is also giving some iPods and tickets to over 100 concerts. The performances from those concerts will also be recorded and made available at the iTunes store.

The promotion will be available in 17 European countries, and will be launched at the Cannes Film festival. In order to win, you'll have to pick up a a Coke, so if you can stomach a few hundred bottles, this might be a quick way to get a sugar rush and a larger music collection all in one fell swoop.

[via Crave]

A French site called BlogMusik is about to take free online music to new heights. I have no idea if this site is legal or not, as there are no copyright notices or anything, but they are providing some serious online free music through a nifty little flash iPod player interface. Playing the tunes, and sharing your song choice is free to anyone, but registering on Blogmusik launches new features such as saving your music preferences. Not a lot is known about this site at the moment, other than they have a MySpace, and a blog, where not much information is given away. Give it a try.

Update: TechCrunch has some nice comments going on. Apparently this could be a re-skin of a music service called RadioBlogClub, where there is a giant music collection open to anyone who cares to join. Also playing in this same category is Sideload.

[Thanks, Mk24!]

SpiralFrog is coming out of the streets of New York City to prove that free legal music downloading is where its at. The service will stay in business by offering ad-supported downloads of audio and video. There are some major labels signed on to this startups project including recording giant Universal Music.

The Universal music deal will allow SpiralFrog users in Canada and the US the ability to download the Universal Music Group's catalogue. There will be no cost to the end user. There will be DRM built into all of the audio and video content. There is no word on the effect that this might have on the content, but it could potentially block it from being burned properly, or transferred to MP3 devices. The SpiralFrog service is scheduled to launch in beta form at the end of 2006.

[Via GigaOM]