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Amazon launch their music store
James Oakwood
0 comments 26 September 2007
Amazon.com have finally revealed a beta version of their online music store, offering DRM-free music at a bitrate of 256 kilobytes per second.
The site, called Amazon MP3, currently has around two million songs from a selection of the major record labels and the independents. Each track costs between 89-99 cents and you can expect to pay between $5.99 to $9.99 for most albums.
The US-only service is open to all MP3 players and audio-playing mobiles, so tracks from the store can be downloaded to your computer and then added to iTunes via Amazon’s ‘MP3 Downloader’.
iPlay comment
Amazon relies on the fact that the labels will supply DRM-free music, and they could run into problems with this in the future. Famously, Universal are now offering their library in a DRM-free format, but only for a trial period. If they decide at the end of this trial that it’s not working for them, then Amazon would either have to lose their DRM advantage or remove the songs from the site.
Apple also has a massive head start with their library too, so other the iTunes tracks are mostly more expensive, it does have a much larger selection on offer – around three times more.
At the end of the day though, although the Amazon site may initially harm iTunes music sales, it’s only a good thing for the industry. The domination by Apple over music downloading has allowed them to dictate terms and prices, but now there’s finally a serious threat to their dominance, they might be more flexible in their pricing.
And as the Amazon tracks are fully compatible with iTunes and the iPod, it also means that us, as iPod owners, have more flexibility over when and where we choose to buy our music.
To check out Amazon MP3 for yourself, go here.
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