Amazon Launches DRM-Free MP3 Download Store
Amazon just launched the “public beta” of their new “Amazon MP3” digital download store.
This is pretty big news. Besides EMusic, all of the other digital stores are using some form of DRM, effectively locking out users of certain hardware and/or operating systems. iTunes sells some stuff in unprotected AAC format but it costs more and from what I have seen the selection is somewhat limited.
“Amazon MP3 is an all-MP3, DRM-free catalog of a la carte music from major labels and independent labels, playable on any device, in high-quality audio, at low prices,” said Bill Carr, Amazon.com Vice President for Digital Music. “This new digital music service has already been through an extensive private beta, and today we’re excited to offer it to our customers as a fully functional public beta. We look forward to receiving feedback from our customers and using their input to refine the service.”
Amazon claims to have 2,000,000 songs available and with most songs priced at $0.89 (10 cents less than iTunes and most others), I’m sure I’ll be buying a few albums, if only to test out the service.
Whether or not they can compete with iTunes, I think this is important in that (if people use it) it will be a great example of how giving people what they want (in this case, unprotected music files) can actually be a more successful business model than trying to have control over the content after it’s purchased. EMusic has been doing this for a while, and been quite successful, but they don’t sell a lot of major label stuff. The fact that a lot of the major labels are on board with Amazon is what makes this interesting.
If you want to see more stores selling mp3s and other unprotected formats, I would recommend giving some serious thought to supporting this new venture. The rest of the industry is no doubt keeping their eye on how this all goes down. And you now have the power to send them a message by only spending your money with companies that respect their customers instead of treating them like potential criminals.
