Amazon to Launch DRM-Free Music Store
Like Apple, Amazon has licensed music from EMI but will be offering songs in MP3 format.
"Our MP3-only strategy means all the music that customers buy on Amazon is always DRM-free and plays on any device," said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com founder and CEO.
No word on pricing is available, but these DRM-free MP3s will play in Apple's iTunes and on the iPod.
Other record labels have not yet adopted this DRM-free strategy. Apple and EMI jointly announced in April that Apple's iTunes would begin selling DRM-free music from EMI beginning in May.
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The writing is on the wall. It is also bad for Microsoft, as their brands of DRM become ever less relevant.
Better have bitrates >128 kbs...
With MP3 they have to have a better bitrate than 256 kbps AAC. Also, I wonder if amazon will make it easy for people to just import the song into the iTunes library without any effort (including album art, etc).
Ahh, the dominoes are falling... DRM is dead...
On music anyway. I wonder how long it will take for movies to follow.
I see DRM being a subscription related constraint, whereas purchased material comes unencumbered.
EDIT:
Amazon is so dumb - mp3's??? Encode a song in mp3 and then in AAC at the same bitrate and see which one sounds better. The difference is noticeable to even the most tone deaf.
At 128kpbs, sure, but try it at 256kbps. There's practically no difference, except Mp3 plays even in Mp3 CD players and mpeg-4 audio (what you're calling "AAC") doesn't.
Mp3 isn't technically as good at the same bitrate, but with today's bandwidth and hard drive space, who the hell cares?
Amazon is so dumb - mp3's??? Encode a song in mp3 and then in AAC at the same bitrate and see which one sounds better. The difference is noticeable to even the most tone deaf.
Yes! Stop with the MP3s already!!! AAC/.m4a is a far-superior non-proprietary format.
Amazon is so dumb - mp3's??? Encode a song in mp3 and then in AAC at the same bitrate and see which one sounds better. The difference is noticeable to even the most tone deaf.
MP3 has more widespread player support.
MP3 has more widespread player support.
As in all of them. ACC only plays on the iPod, Zune, and a couple others.
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