I wonder how they have it set up with US record companies?

Nice title.

iTunes, to the best of my understanding, was never about making money by selling music. It was, and is, a vehicle for selling iPods. Newsweek had an article a couple years ago about Apple's profits, and they were more than willing to accept very little profit on the songs in order to build the iPod brand (they're cute! we have a great catalog! don't steal music! did we mention our iPods are cute?)

Digital what?

Dunno; that's all I could make of it either. I assume it's something relevant.

Google suggests it probably means something like "digital rights management". Sorry about the sloppy research; I am about to go to bed. Goodnight!

That's what I was thinking.

Don't forgot bleep, which not only has DRM free music, but often has it in FLAC (true cd quality) or at least very high quality MP3. Plus, you can preview entire songs on bleep.

Of course, you have to like music from Warp Records or one of the other labels they're partnered with for bleep to be of service to you.