Pepsi and Amazon are negotiating a deal to give away up to 1 billion songs during a music-giveaway promotion that will launch during the 2008 Superbowl on February 3rd, according to Billboard Magazine. The deal is reminiscent of the early iTunes-Pepsi promotional giveaways that were launched at the 2004 and 2005 Superbowls.
In the upcoming promotion, however, Amazon will replace Apple as the music distributor, providing MP3s from their DRM-free Music Store which launched as an early Beta in September. Amazon's DRM-free store works on Macs and integrates remarkably well with iTunes.
The negotiations also serve as a push for several labels to join the DRM-free movement, since the promotion is sure to attract a large number of customers. Wal-Mart is also forcing the issue by alerting Warner Music Group and Sony BMG that they will pull all of their Windows Media Audio (DRM) format music from Wal-Mart's site by January if the labels have not yet provided their music in MP3 format.
At present, the labels offering DRM-free music are fragmented across stores. EMI was first to announce the launch of DRM-free music in iTunes, while Universal is offering DRM free music to everyone but iTunes.
