Napster - DRM Free

Napster, who has a sale catalogue of 6 million songs, today stripped DRM from all paid downloads on its digital music service in favor of unprotected MP3s.

The company has support from all 4 major labels. (Given Napster's legal history with the labels, it's kind of ironic, right?)

Notably, customers cannot (yet) replace their previously purchased DRM-laden files with the new unprotected versions. Does the media-upgrade strategy correlate to other historical "upgrades": LP to tape, tape to CD, CD to...errr...minidisc? Will consumers purchase DRM-free copies of songs they previously downloaded with DRM?

[Billboard article.]