• by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, January 7, 2008

Apple's iTunes store continues to face increasing competition for sales of downloadable music, movies and TV shows.

Consider, Napster said on Sunday that it's going to start selling single tracks and albums in MP3 format -- meaning consumers will easily be able to put the files on iPods or any other portable music players they wish. This news comes just days after it was reported that Sony BMG would join the other three major record labels in the sale of DRM-free versions of its music at some sites.

The Sony tracks will be sold at MusicPass.com starting Jan. 15. At launch, 37 albums will be available. Meantime, Amazon.com, which recently launched a service to rival iTunes, just added DRM-free tracks from Warner to its offerings. For iPod users, there will be little reason to remain loyal to iTunes, when DRM-free tracks are available elsewhere.

At the same time, options for purchasing downloads of TV shows and movies also are increasing. Last night, on the eve of the Consumer Electronics Show, Microsoft said it would start offering downloads of movies and TV shows from NBC Universal, Walt Disney, MGM Studios and CBS's Showtime on Xbox Live and MSN.com.