Amazon.com rolls out DRM-free music store globally as iTunes cries like a baby
That’s right! Amazon recently finished signing all four major record labels to its MP3 music store and said it would begin rolling out the online service internationally this year. Amazon’s Music Store is now free of digital rights management technology, which means the audio files can be played on any portable player through any mp3 media player. At last! Besides offering flexibility in playing tunes, Amazon.com is also trying to lure customers away from rivals with price. Apple sells individual tracks for 99 cents and albums for $9.99, but Amazon.com offers a third of its inventory at 89 cents a track. Albums cost from $5.99 to $9.99.
is now free of digital rights management technology, which means the audio files can be played on any portable player through any mp3 media player. At last! Besides offering flexibility in playing tunes, Amazon.com is also trying to lure customers away from rivals with price. Apple sells individual tracks for 99 cents and albums for $9.99, but Amazon.com offers a third of its inventory at 89 cents a track. Albums cost from $5.99 to $9.99.Amazon.com is hoping consumers will turn to it instead of iTunes or Microsoft’s Zune store in order to take advantage of a more open format. And I have a strong feeling as iTunes catches on this will naturally encourage a massive surge in legal mp3 purchases and be a life-saving move for the music industry as a whole.
nathan
I believe Walmart used to sell DRM free music via their website for 89 cents a track. It’s great that guys like Walmart and Amazon, with their massive market shares, can afford to take a dime cut on every song they sell since they already control 99.999999{a9f0d31f6175b3e4775e11a66c07db268fb74408d6095f6b46eeec420c0e9f62} of the market of selling anything.
I also hate iTunes, man. It sucks that they made it possible to keep the music industry viable by being the only legal place to get mp3s during the Kazaa/P2P days when record companies were going apeshit over the fact that their ridiculously overinflated profits were all being flushed down the drain in exchange for a more realistic price point.
Also, iTunes was all trying to imitate Amazon when, months before Amazon released their service, iTunes began offering DRM free music (known as iTunes Plus) for any mp3 that would offer it.
It’s great that Amazon figured out a DRM-free deal with the music industry who was, due to pressure partly influenced by Apple, heading in that direction anyway for months. Two of the big four labels already announced that they’d no longer push DRM in favor of watermarking music instead, and one of the two remaining labels were looking into it as well.
Innovation in an area as bogged down as the music industry is very difficult, and it sucks that Apple went and made such huge strides in the beginning that allow Amazon to come along and take the process even further. I hate when companies help you out and then don’t do it exactly the way you wanted to!