It’s easy to be on the bleeding edge of the latest technology based in San Francisco, but I tend to be more of a follower in other areas, such as music.

I always seem to be one step behind a friend here, who recommends the latest hot bands and the best way of being educated on and acquiring music.

It was him who first recommended Pitchfork to me for music reviews and eMusic for downloads free of digital rights management (DRM) software.

He was ahead of me in switching back to buying CDs and ripping them to portable media players as we became disillusioned with subscription services and restrictions on the portability of music.

So I took note when he said he was buying a lot of music from Amazon’s DRM-free MP3 service these days.

An album generally costs $8.99, or 89 cents a track, cheaper than regular CDs and the music can be burned to your own CDs an unlimited number of times or transferred to any device.

The service has just gained extra appeal with the news that Warner Music Group is making its catalogue available. It joins EMI, Universal Music Group and a host of independent labels, significantly increasing the choice available.

In contrast, Apple’s iTunes store only offers DRM-free music from one of the majors – EMI.

Amazonmp3 is therefore becoming a strong alternative to iTunes and the iPod universe, which is due in no small part to the majors not wanting to be held hostage to Apple’s pricing policies. And it is finally giving consumers what they really want – music without restrictions on their use of it.

UPDATE: On January 10, Sony joined the other three majors in making its library available DRM-free on Amazon.