News
Amazon launches public beta of DRM-free music download store
By Charles Starrett
Senior Editor, iLounge
Published: Tuesday, September 25, 2007
News Category: Digital Media
Amazon has launched a public beta of Amazon MP3, its new digital music download store offering DRM-free 256kbps MP3 files. According to Amazon, the service boasts “Earth’s biggest selection of a la carte DRM-free MP3 music downloads.” The service currently offers over two million songs from more than 180,000 artists. Individual tracks are available for $.89 or $.99, with full albums available from $5.99 to $9.99. In addition, the company is offering its Amazon MP3 Downloader, a helper application that seamlessly adds users’ MP3s to their iTunes or Windows Media Player libraries.
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21
“I certainly hope they address the design aspect ASAP, since those coming from the slickness of iTMS will turn right around and not even give it a chance.”
Eh wrong. Thanks for playin’ though.
I don’t care about the site design. The selection is smaller than itunes but in the future if Amazon has the song i’m looking for i’d be stupid to by it at itunes.
Posted by Steve on September 25, 2007 at 8:54 PM (PDT)
22
US users only. That means Canadians who want to legally download music will have to do so through the iTunes Store.
Posted by Captain Maniac on September 25, 2007 at 9:45 PM (PDT)
23
Jesus, some of you folks seem to be oblivious to the fact that this is in the beta stage. All these gripes about limited selection are silly—there’s no point in Amazon trotting out umpteen billion songs right now if the beta convinces them that a full release will be unsuccessful. And the site design? Good Lord. If it’s functional and easy to use, that should be the baseline expectation during the beta phase.
Let’s give Amazon a chance here. This is very much in its infancy. iTunes has really blossomed over the past several years, and there’s no reason that Amazon’s service couldn’t do the same.
Posted by Flippy Hambone on September 26, 2007 at 6:44 AM (PDT)
24
The main point here is DRM-free music…everybodys been wanting it, here it is, forget the looks etc (it is beta) and embrace the idea!
Posted by irok on September 26, 2007 at 8:59 AM (PDT)
25
This is the first time any non-iTunes music store has pulled me in, but this seems great so far. True, I’m not finding everything, but it’s more than I expected out of the gate and the tracks sound quite nice. Since they’re cheaper and lack DRM, I really can’t think of a reason to use iTunes (that is, for the music Amazon actually has).
Posted by izimbra on September 27, 2007 at 7:25 PM (PDT)
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