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Amazon offers music downloads

September 26, 2007 › Sandy McMurray | comment

Online retailer Amazon.com is testing an online store called Amazonmp3 -- a direct competitor for Apple's iTunes Store.

Amazonmp3 is not available outside the US yet, but I'm excited anyway because it doesn't use electronic copy protection (aka DRM). In other words, when you buy a song from Amazonmp3, you get a high quality digital version of the song with no electronic lockdown. It's a song you can freely enjoy, copy and use on any digital music player, not just iPods. I love iTunes, but this is very, very good for consumers.

If you like Amazon's latest offering, you can blame Apple:

The self-created headache for the industry is that the highly popular iPod and new iPhone only play music protected by Apple's proprietary FairPlay DRM solution or music that isn't protected at all. And Apple chairman Steve Jobs has repeatedly balked at licensing FairPlay for use on competing download services or devices.

Read more here.

September 26, 2007 › Sandy McMurray | comment on this item

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