First World label offers vinyl records with MP3

It’s easy enough (albeit not particularly legal) to convert your CD purchases to MP3, but converting vinyl is a little bit more of a tricky task. Well, one label is willing to save you the time and effort of wiring up a deck to your PC, offering the MP3 with the vinyl.

The label is independent First Word, a hip hop, soul and jazz label based in Leeds. It’s offering double-weight vinyl discs that come with a unique code. With that code, you can download an unprotected, 320Kbps MP3 version of the track.

It’s a sensible idea. The label is very DJ-friendly, with buyers demanding vinyl because that’s still the only format you can take seriously in clubland. But if you want to listen to a track on the go, or get a booking where digital tracks aren’t sneered at, you can use your download.

And according to First Word founder Aly Gillani, it had to be DRM-free: “Once a customer has paid for the track they should be free to play it in any player. Making a legal, paid-for version of the file less useful than a copied or pirated one doesn’t make sense.”

First Word website

Via Wired