Amazon to Sell Unprotected MP3s?
Times Online reports that Amazon has approached all the major music studios about selling unprotected MP3s online.
According to the article, Amazon is aiming to launch this new music store next month in order to challenge Apple's own iTunes store. Apple and EMI made headlines earlier this month by announcing that they would be selling EMI's music catalog on iTunes without any form of digital rights management (DRM).
Not all other studio's appear to have adopted this model and Times Online expects only "EMI and independent labels" to join Amazon's initial launch.
The use of DRM in digital sales has been due to industry concerns about unrestricted piracy of music files. The use of DRM, however, also has limited interoperability between music stores and music players. At present, Apple's iTunes protected songs can be played only on Apple's iPod or Apple TV. Meanwhile, protected content from other online music stores (Napster, for example) cannot be played on the Apple iPod. The launch of unprotected music sales would eliminate these artificial limitations.
According to the article, Amazon is aiming to launch this new music store next month in order to challenge Apple's own iTunes store. Apple and EMI made headlines earlier this month by announcing that they would be selling EMI's music catalog on iTunes without any form of digital rights management (DRM).
Not all other studio's appear to have adopted this model and Times Online expects only "EMI and independent labels" to join Amazon's initial launch.
The use of DRM in digital sales has been due to industry concerns about unrestricted piracy of music files. The use of DRM, however, also has limited interoperability between music stores and music players. At present, Apple's iTunes protected songs can be played only on Apple's iPod or Apple TV. Meanwhile, protected content from other online music stores (Napster, for example) cannot be played on the Apple iPod. The launch of unprotected music sales would eliminate these artificial limitations.
Top Rated Comments
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63 months ago
interesting development. competition is good though.
i wonder what the quality of the tracks would be. anything under 192kbps MP3 and i'm not buying at all.
i wonder what the quality of the tracks would be. anything under 192kbps MP3 and i'm not buying at all.
63 months ago
Competition is good. I'll buy from anyone who can give me at least 192 kbps and no DRM. For underground electronic music, I'd also recommend Bleep. Fantastic quality, no BS.
63 months ago
iTunes will be doing 256K MP3 from EMI so I'd expect Amazon to match this.
Thought it was 256 kbps AAC?
B
63 months ago
I wish AAC was called MP4 for marketing reasons. Anyways I hope this puts some pressure on the other record companies. I hope this model makes a ton of cash and nobody steals this music in a big way.
63 months ago
mp3 aac, it's all the same
Not really. 256K AAC is more like 320K MP3 in terms of quality.
I like the way "allmp3.com" works. After you select the track you want you can have any bit rate you want. You pay then by the bit so 256K cost double what 128K costs. They should all do that. Then you can have lossless if you want to pay for the bits.
63 months ago
I wish AAC was called MP4 for marketing reasons.
It would make sense, especially since M4A is short for MPEG-4 Audio. Instead of MPEG-1 Level 3. :pB
63 months ago
is this its new business? I never knew amazon actually was selling musics?:eek:
63 months ago
is this its new business? I never knew amazon actually was selling musics?:eek:
FWIW, they've had a lot of FREE MP3s on their site for a while now. Mostly indie, but some good stuff there.
http://www.amazon.com/Digital-Music-Downloads/b?ie=UTF8&node=468646
B
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