A little over six months after first being announced (last100 coverage), LimWire’s DRM-free music download store has finally opened for business.

The U.S.-only store currently has a catalog of 500,000 tracks, with thousands more to be added “daily”. All music is offered as MP3s encoded at 256 kbps and priced a la carte at 99c per track. Additionally, LimeWire is offering pre-paid plans similar to eMusic, ranging from $9.99 per-month for 25 downloads (40c per track) to $19.99 per-month for 75 downloads (27c per track).

Maybe the Beatles catalogue is coming to iTunes after all, if “American Idol” is any indication.

Last Friday, reports surfaced in the UK press that the Beatles catalogue is about to be made available on iTunes. Reports suggested that unnamed sources “close to Sir Paul McCartney” had confirmed that the Beatles music would be available through iTunes and other legal online services “within months.”

But this week, Apple downplayed the Beatles-coming-to-iTunes as “unsubstantiated speculation” and issued a bunch of “no comments.”

We hear the Beatles are coming to iTunes every few months, the last being in November when McCartney told Billboard.com that “It’s down to fine-tuning, but I’m pretty sure it’ll be happening next year, 2008.”

McCartney’s solo catalogue is already available on the Web, and Olivia Harrison, widow of Beatles guitarist George Harrison, said last June that McCartney, Ringo Starr, and representatives of the late John Lennon were in agreement that the music should be available online.

Tuesday the 12 remaining “American Idol” wannabes performed songs from the Beatles catalogue, which “American Idol” producers have been trying to land for seven seasons. They finally secure the rights . . . at the same time Apple launches a huge promotion of “American Idol” performances in iTunes.

Coincidence?

By the way, David Cook’s cover of “Eleanor Rigby” is pretty darn good. Or so I’m told.

After dipping one toe into the DRM-free waters, two leading audio book publishers are set to ditch copy-protection technology altogether.

Following a successful trial with digital music store eMusic, Random House has told partners that it will begin offering all of its audiobooks as unprotected MP3s, reports the New York Times, unless retailers or authors specify otherwise.

In a memo [.pdf] sent out last month, Random House Audio told partners:

Beginning March 1st, we will no longer require that our retail partners use DRM when selling audiobooks via digital download. We believe that this move will allow for healthy competition among retailers targeting the iPod consumer, without posing any substantive increase in risk of piracy.

Making good on his promise from last year, Trent Reznor, the iconoclast leader of Nine Inch Nails, has released the band’s latest CD on the Internet. Reznor is clearly experimenting not only with alternative distribution forms but with the music itself.

“Ghosts I-IV” is a 36-track instrumental collection that Reznor describes as “music for daydreams.” It extends what Radiohead began last year with its groundbreaking (for a major act) pay-what-you-want scheme, only Reznor has added his own twist.

“Ghosts I-IV” is available for casual fans — free, $5, and $10 — and for hard core NIN lovers — $75 to $300. Reznor’s experiment, like many artists in the music industry today, relies on the theory that fans will pay for the music (and not download it illegally) if there’s extra value included, and Reznor certainly has that covered.

More evidence of an iTunes backlash from the major record labels, 7digital announced that it has trumped Apple to become the first European download store to offer the Warner Music catalog DRM-free.

Starting today, 7digital customers in the UK, Ireland, Spain, France and Germany can purchase tracks from Warner in the MP3 format, playable on virtually any digital audio player including iPods. To promote the Warner coup, 7digital is making select albums from Warner Music’s catalog available for a limited period at the price of £5/€6.99.

In contrast, the only Warner tracks available on iTunes – in Europe or the U.S. – employ Apple’s FairPlay copyprotection technology, meaning that they are limited to playback on Apple-sanctioned devices such as the iPod, iPhone and AppleTV. And although Amazon’s download store sells music from Warner DRM-free, it’s currently only open to U.S. residents.

Bye bye Best Buy.

Apple put out a rather self-congratulatory press release today announcing that the company’s iTunes Store is now the number two music retailer in the U.S. And who are we not to repeat the news?

Previously holding the number three spot (having overtaken Amazon last June), iTunes has now knocked Best Buy out of its way, leaving only Wal-Mart out ahead. However, the boasting doesn’t stop there.

A new patent filed recently by Apple may give podcasting a significant and much needed boost.

The patent, known by the incredibly dull title of “Creation, Management, and Delivery of Personalized Media Items”, hints at the future of podcasting and provides insight into how Apple thinks podcasting can be improved.

You may recall only a few years ago podcasting was a grass-roots new media movement practiced and enjoyed by techies and early adopters. But when Apple decided in mid-2005 to include podcasts, both audio and video, in an iTunes directory, it skyrocketed in popularity, although many would argue that it falls short of mainstream acceptance.