RSSAmazon to Open Music Download Store
By Nate Mook | Published May 16, 2007, 10:50 AM
Online retailer Amazon.com on Wednesday confirmed rumors that it plans to open a music download store to compete with Apple's iTunes. Unlike competitors, however, Amazon will only sell songs in the unprotected MP3 format.
Amazon says it will offer millions of songs on the as-yet unnamed service, which come from 12,000 record labels. Most of these will be smaller, independent labels, as EMI is the only major to have agreed to license its tracks without digital rights management.
"Our MP3-only strategy means all the music that customers buy on Amazon is always DRM-free and plays on any device," said Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. "We're excited to have EMI joining us in this effort and look forward to offering our customers MP3s from amazing artists like Coldplay, Norah Jones and Joss Stone."
With Amazon on-board the DRM-free movement, it could persuade other major labels to follow EMI. Both Universal and Warner have said they are testing unprotected songs, but are wary of piracy that could come about from users openly sharing the digital tracks they purchase.
Because it has chosen MP3 as the format, songs from Amazon will be compatible with almost every digital music player - from iPods to Zunes to Zens. Although Apple plans to offer DRM-free songs from EMI at a slight premium -- $1.29 compared to $0.99 -- the files will be in Apple's AAC format, which is not supported by many players.
Still, that may not be enough to pose a serious challenge to iTunes, say analysts.
"If Amazon can offer a greater catalog than Apple at a lower price point or higher quality bit rates, we might begin to see iPod users begin to use the Amazon offering over iTunes but unless there's a marked differentiation, it's not likely that iPod users would go to Amazon over iTunes, especially given the iTunes eco system of music, TV shows, movies and games," remarked Jupiter Research vice president Michael Gartenberg.
Amazon expects to launch its music download store later this year, but did not provide a specific date.
*yawn* Another one of those "me too!" online music stores. Every month there's a couple of new headlines like that: "Burger King Opens Online Music Store" and "Home Depot Opens Online Music Store". They're all just trying to cash in on the iTunes success story, but failing miserably. I remember when they were passing the Napster brand name around, trying desperately to cash in on it and failing each time. I'm not saying this is a bad idea or anything, it's just hard to get excited when everyone + their dog has an online music store.
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|AWESOME!! that would be neat and I can't wait to see when this service is open. I've tried eMusic and they are good too. iTunes....hahaha, I don't even know why people bother with that, but anyway...go Amazon!
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|How many times are Amazon and/or Apple going to announce this prior to actual launch. This is the second time I've read a press release from Amazon about their DRM free music store. Just do it already!
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|Most of these will be smaller, independent labels, as EMI is the only major to have agreed to license its tracks without digital rights management.
It's been relegated to eMusic status. Great site, great idea, nothing the majority of the population really wants.
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|Seriously, if they are so worried about unprotected media being pirated, its a poor excuse to not begin DRM free. As they already KNOW, the music is being pirated ANYWAYS. It makes sense to sell DRM free music, and expect people will purchase it, and less will pirate. But regardless, some will pirate. DRM free will allow more who choose to purchase, thus offsetting the current pirate rate. This will not INCREASE the pirate rate, as all the media is already available. The ones who know it is illegal already know its illegal, and those who have the DRM free MP3 format, will in turn, acquier a reciept for proof of purchase. Those who pirate, will still be the same without such reciepts, who are still the same people with illigal copies of MP3s, who are still the same who may be charged for pirating illegal content.
Whatever! ;]
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|So what you're saying is that there is not one single person out there who is currently not pirating due to fear of possible prosecution who would pirate if such things stopped being enforced?
How cute.
How often do they let you out of your little padded room?
The apparent futility of trying to get irresponsible people to respect the rights of content creators is not a reason to simply stop trying by any stretch of logic. They will simply try harder.
It will only ensure that DRM will become more restrictive; hardware and playback devices will become more expensive and limited in functionality; and the content itself will rise in price.
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|Giddyup!
The thing is, Amazon could undercut iTunes' price and win in the long run. They only need these DRM free songs as a way to draw people into their site to buy other things (I forgot what B&M stores call these types of items).
I would equate this to a Best Buy vs. Tower Records. All those $6.99/$9.99 CD prices at BB killed off the more established Tower/Sam Goodies/etc. type stores.
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|I've always known the term as 'loss-leading' when items are offered cheaper than the competitors (or even at a price thats under the wholesale buy-in rate) in order to prod the buyer into buying other, regular priced, stuff at the same time.
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|Fingers crossed this goes well! I've been waiting for someone to open a music store online which has a large catalog of music, without DRM, and encoded at a high quality comparable to LAME's -v 2 VBR, or better.
That would finally receive my support for buying music online. :)
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|Will be interesting to see.
Hope the bitrate is good enough and not the lackluster 128 that I expect it will be.
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|My guess: 192kbps at least, but probably 256kbps.
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