Amazon.com launches music download site. 256kb/s MP3s with no DRM. And presumably Amazon knows how to make a non-annoying purchasing experience. This sounds like a contender. They say they have 2 million songs, but the only major labels are EMI and Universal. The iTunes Music Store already has the EMI catalogue with no DRM at 256kb/s, so the Universal stuff is the only major new thing here. But there are a bunch of smaller labels going DRM free including: Alligator Records, HighTone Records, Madacy Entertainment, Sanctuary Records, Rounder Records, Righteous Babe Records, Sugar Hill Records, and Trojan Records. Nice to see some competition and nice to see the no DRM thing spreading a little, and at a completely acceptable bitrate to boot.

Here's the press release.
- jim 9-25-2007 6:42 pm

Wow. I may buy music. On-line.
- mark 9-25-2007 9:55 pm


funny that the song for the ipod ad is the #1 download on amazon.
- dave 9-25-2007 11:37 pm


This is clearly going to be a competitor for Apple. But you can look at it another way too - as proof that the iPod has killed Windows Media (at least for audio.) Since the iPod can't play Windows Media files, it's impossible to sell music in that format. Game over. Apple doesn't win anything huge here, but Microsoft has definitely lost big.

The "it has to play on an iPod" reality is going to exert a lot of pressure for selling content without DRM. And if "it has to play on an iPod" *and* you don't want to do a deal with Apple, then you really have no choice.
- jim 10-01-2007 9:54 pm





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