They may have faced the wrath of the mighty music labels time and time again, but LimeWire just keeps going.

The company has now opened a music store with around 500,000 DRM-free songs, but none of them are taken from the catalogues of major record labels.

Bloggers are already saying that the website (which is in beta) is a great place for getting music from up-and-coming bands and underground artists, but not so good if you're a Madonna fan.

Downloads cost between $0.30 (15p) and $0.99 (50p), with subscriptions varying between $10 (£5) a month for 25 songs, and $20 (£10) a month for 75 songs.

At the moment, downloads are only available in the US. But LimeWire's P2P service is still attracting downloaders much to the chagrin of pretty much every record label out there.

>> News - P2P software company LimeWire countersues recording industry body
>> News - LimeWire gets sued by record industry in the US
>> Via - Crave at CNet