Online retailer Amazon.com has been in the news a lot this week. Yesterday it was announced that Amazon.com will start their own digital music store and will sell DRM-free music downloads in the MP3 format. The MP3s will be compatible on all computers and digital music players including Apple's popular iPod.
This announcement follows one made last month when Apple announced it would be selling DRM-free music in the AAC format from the EMI group of music labels through the iTunes Music Store. EMI is one of the 4 biggest record label conglomerates in the world owning such labels as Capitol and EMI Records.
Amazon's service is slated to be launched in the fall. Pricing for the DRM-free MP3s have not been announced. Apple meanwhile was slated to start selling their DRM-free AAC files at $1.29 each per song this month through the iTunes Music Store. Apple will continue to sell copy-protected AAC music files for 99 cents.
Hopefully the DRM-free AAC and MP3 file formats find success in the marketplace to a point where they will eventually replace all copy protected music and audio content. This is good for the consumer as it allows us to purchase once and use the files on any device we own.
In other Amazon.com news, it was announced earlier this week that they were buying dpreview.com, a popular digital camera and photography review website based in England. I like dpreview.com, and hope the purchase does not change how the site is run.
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Thursday, May 17, 2007
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2 comments:
I think that the real marketplace issue is not DRM but price. People use P2P because the songs are free, not because they are DRM free. The labels need to make the music free through advertising support. Check out the Ad-Supported Music Central blog: http://ad-supported-music.blogspot.com/
Yes the price is higher at least for Apple. Amazon has not announced a price for their DRM-free MP3s. More than likely it will be same as Apple, but if they really wanted to stir the pot, they would sell their MP3s for 99 cents. Late last year Amazon.com sold Norah Jones' single "Thinking of You" for 99 cents in an uprotected MP3 format.
While P2P remains free we have to acknowledge that they are illegal. I don't do P2P mainly because I don't want to open my computer up to anonymous people trying to get music... or the RIAA.
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