Re-blogged from LearnOutLoud, here’s a selection of podcast sites that give you total freedom in the use of the content, i.e. no DRM-restrictions or software included:

Don’t forget to check out our own Podcast Directory.
“DRM-Free Music Sites

eMusic – The best-known and most popular DRM-free music site. I love what these guys are doing. First of all they’re cheap ($0.25 a download). They’ve got a large selection (over a million songs) and they are bringing on an increasing number of well-known artists (e.g., Ray Charles, Bob Marley, Coldplay, Johnny Cash). They certainly don’t have as much of the latest and greatest as iTunes or Rhapsody but what they’ve amassed is pretty impressive. I’d love to see eMusic get even more popular and give the big boys a run for their money.

Pros: Great selection, low prices, increasing selection of popular artists

Cons: No rollover on their monthly plans (either use your monthly downloads or you lose them), no a la carte sales

Audio Lunchbox – This is a great site for independent music. They have a number of plans ranging from monthly to a “Platinum” plan which offers over a thousand downloads for $250/year. While eMusic might have a wider selection and better prices on many titles, ALB does have a lot of music that eMusic doesn’t.

Pros: Diverse selection of independent music, low prices, can purchase a la carte, RSS feed available for new additions

Cons: Like eMusic your monthly credits do not roll over, credit system can be a bit confusing

Magnatune – I love what John Buckman has done at Magnatune. One of the coolest things is that CDs on Magnatune sell for a minimum price of $5 but you can choose to pay whatever you want. The cool thing is that the average selling price is $8.93. And Magnatune splits all royalties with its artists so when you buy anything on the site you know exactly how much the artist is getting paid. Magnatune might not have as many names that you’ve heard of but there’s a heck of a lot of good music there and given the general “goodness” of their business model this is a company definitely worth supporting.

Pros: Multiple DRM-free formats (even WAV files!), listen to albums in their entirety before buying, give 3 copies of music you buy to friends, their motto (“We are not Evil”)

Cons: Not many artists that you’ve previously heard of

betterPropaganda – A sweet site for indie music with free MP3 downloads. Most of the artists are up-and-coming ones although artists like Brian Eno, Snow Patrol and Belle and Sebastian are featured (however, many artists have a limited number of tracks available). betterPropaganda has done a lot with playlists and podcasts and has a cool recommendations service from Loomia (the same company we use for our recommendations service). Definitely a site to keep an eye on.

Pros: FREE MP3 downloads, Nice mix of up-and-coming independent artists and more established ones, playlists, podcasts and recommendations

Cons: Limited number of tracks from more popular artists

Others: Bleep | CommonTunes | Epitonic | Garage Band | Insound

DRM-Free Audiobook Sites

Telltale Weekly – Telltale Weekly and its sister site, The Spoken Alexandria Project, have a number of free and low-cost public domain audiobooks. A glance at their bestsellers list produces titles from authors like Mark Twain, Edgar Allen Poe and H.G. Wells (of The War of the Worlds fame). Telltale’s prices are very low and they have made a commitment to releasing recordings under the Creative Commons License in the future. In addition, they give 7% of gross revenues to worthy charities such as Project Gutenberg and the Wikimedia Foundation.

Pros: Low prices and many free titles, Multiple file formats (MP3, AAC and Ogg Vorbis), Charitable giving

Cons: Selection consists only of public domain titles, many titles are fairly short in length

Librivox – Librivox has an interesting take on audiobooks. They gathered an army of volunteers to read public domain audiobooks a chapter at a time. The upside is that they are producing a ton of content to listen to. The downside is that they chapter-by-chapter approach leads to some big inconsistencies in quality (although this does appear to be getting over time). And since these titles are all available for free it’s tough to complain.

Pros: All audiobooks are free to download, large and growing selection of classical literature

Cons: Selection consists only of public domain titles, inconsistency both among and within titles

LearnOutLoud – We’re doing the DRM-free thing as well and while our selection is still pretty small (approx. 400 titles) it’s growing pretty quickly. A number of our titles are public domain but most are not including titles like Think and Grow Rich and content from authors like Bodhipaksa and Sir John Templeton. We’re heavy on self-improvement titles but working hard to expand our selection in other areas as well. In addition, we give away one free full-length audiobook each month.

Pros: DRM-free non-public domain audiobooks, Multiple file formats (MP3 and bookmarkable MPEG-4), Personalized recommendations

Cons: Selection is still somewhat small and focused primarily on self-improvement titles.”