Amazon Goes DRM Free!
05.21.07 - 10:18am
Amazon has announced that they will open their online music download store - DRM free!
Hoping to compete with iTunes, Amazon is joining the DRM free revolution by announcing they will only sell DRM free music in their new online MP3 music store to open later this year. With two of the largest purveyors of music going DRM free, record labels may be forced to go along with them.
Amazon only mentioned EMI signing with them, but they say that by the time their music store opens later this year that they will have DRM free music from over 12,000 labels.
They are trying to compete with Apple who is already selling DRM free music for $1.29 a download and the DRM protected for $.99. The big difference between the two is in the way their DRM free music is released. Apple only releases their DRM free music in AAC format which is not compatible with very many devices although works fine with the iPod. Amazon will release their songs in MP3 format which is compatible with all devices.
“Our MP3-only strategy means all the music that customers buy on Amazon is always DRM-free and plays on any device,” said Amazon founder / CEO Jeff Bezos. “We’re excited to have EMI joining us in this effort and look forward to offering our customers MP3s from amazing artists like Coldplay, Norah Jones and Joss Stone.”
Amazon released no details of the when the store the would be launched, other than later in the year, or for how much the downloads would be sold for. Bill Carr, vice president of digital media at Amazon says that the reason that Amazon did not open a store earlier was because of DRM. He said, “We’ve been patiently waiting to offer customers a great customer experience. DRM has been a bottleneck to enable that.â€
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