As an iLike employee, and as a music listener who prefers DRM-free music and free full track preview, I’m excited about today’s announcement with Rhapsody.

Here’s an overview of Rhapsody’s initiative:

Rhapsody®, the leading digital music service from RealNetworks®, Inc. (Nasdaq RNWK) and MTV Networks, today launched its “Music Without Limits” initiative. This strategy is designed to turbocharge the digital music industry in three ways, by:

* Accelerating the move away from proprietary Digital Rights Formats by making music from all major labels available in the DRM-free and interoperable MP3 format;

* Empowering music fans to conveniently stream full-length songs, and buy MP3s, anywhere they want including the most popular music sites and social networks on the Web;

* Integrating digital music directly with mobile phones through a deep partnership between Rhapsody and Verizon Wireless.

Rhapsody is proud to be partnering with some of the most innovative companies of our time, including: iLike, Yahoo!, MTV Networks, and Verizon Wireless, to connect consumers with digital music wherever they are and however they want it.”

Beginning today, consumers can purchase MP3 music from Rhapsody and its partners that is free of the digital rights management (DRM) software that restricts how and where people can play their music…

The Rhapsody MP3 catalogue will include more than 5 million songs from all four major music labels—Universal Music Group, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, and EMI—and an extensive number of independent labels.

Here are more details on what full song playback and MP3 sales will mean for iLike and music discovery on social networks:

Rhapsody and iLike, the leading social music discovery service, have created a new model that will monetize music consumption on the top social networks for labels and artists. To give iLike’s enormous audience a taste of the popular Rhapsody Unlimited subscription service, Rhapsody will power free, full-song playback across iLike.com and iLike’s leading music applications on the Web’s most popular social platforms, including: Facebook, MySpace, hi5, Orkut, and Bebo. Full-song streaming will be available for free to iLike users until a monthly threshold of 25 plays is reached, at which time iLike users can choose to sign up for a Rhapsody account or enjoy 30 second song samples until the end of the month.

Artists and labels will be paid royalties each time their music is played via Rhapsody’s existing agreements. This will be the first widespread implementation of a scalable model to monetize the enormous potential for music consumption across social networks. iLike’s more than 28 million registered users will enjoy free full-length song playback. Additionally, Rhapsody’s MP3 store will also be added as an option to the iLike “buy” button.

“With this announcement, iLike is expanding from being the leading social music discovery service to becoming a powerful social music consumption solution,” said Ali Partovi CEO of iLike. “In collaboration with Rhapsody, we’re empowering artists and labels to make money every time their music is played on iLike and across the Web’s major social networks.”