Amazon Gets Sony BMG Music DRM Free!
01.11.08 - 03:03pm
Amazon has added Sony BMG to their already large repertoire of DRM free music as BMG joins Universal, Warner and EMI, selling their songs DRM free from the Amazon website. This puts Amazon’s DRM free catalog at an impressive 3.1 million songs.
The addition of BMG’s music on Amazon puts a larger dent in the Apple/iTunes dominace over the market as Apple still has yet to sell any of its music DRM free except that from EMI. All the other music on iTunes can only be played on an iPod and have limited download use due to the Fairplay restrictions on the music.
“We are constantly exploring new ways of making our music available to consumers in the physical space, over the Internet and through mobile phones, and this initiative is the newest element of our ongoing campaign to bring our music to fans wherever they happen to be,” said Thomas Hesse, president of global digital business and U.S. sales for Sony BMG, in a statement.
Amazon currently has better prices on the majority of songs than Apple with single songs selling for $.89 cents to $.99 cents and albums selling for $5.99 to $9.99. Apple has a universal price tag of .99 cents or $9.99 an album.
To add to their expected success over iTunes Amazon had previously added songs from the largest record label in the world Universal, DRM free. Universal defected from Apple back in September, offering their songs DRM free to other sites excluding iTunes. At the same time NBC Universal also pulled their television shows from the site. The reported confrontation was over Apple refusing to sell the music or TV shows for higher prices. Ironically they are now selling them on Amazon for less than they would have sold them on Apple’s iTunes. Universal said at the time that they were excluding Apple because “iTunes could serve as a ‘control group’ to make sales comparisons easier.”
The new downloads without DRM will be available later this month on Amazon.com. Pete Baltaxe, director of digital music for Amazon.com was excited about the venture with Sony BMG saying, “Some people have resisted buying digital music because of the restriction. I do believe we’re adding new buyers of digital music.”
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