News
Sony BMG to offer DRM-free music through Amazon MP3
By Charles Starrett
Senior Editor, iLounge
Published: Thursday, January 10, 2008
News Category: Digital Media
Amazon.com has announced that it will be adding music from Sony BMG to its Amazon MP3 DRM-free music store later this month, which will make it the only service to offer DRM-free tracks from all four major labels. “We are excited to offer Amazon MP3 customers DRM-free MP3s from SONY BMG, which represents many of the most popular musicians from the past and present,” said Bill Carr, Amazon.com Vice President for Digital Music. “Our Amazon MP3 customers will be able to choose from a full selection of DRM-free music downloads from all four major labels and over 33,000 independents that they can play on virtually any music-capable device.” “We are excited to be working with Amazon as they continue to build new markets for digital music,” commented Thomas Hesse, President of Global Digital Business & U.S. Sales for Sony BMG. “We are constantly exploring new ways of making our music available to consumers in the physical space, over the internet and through mobile phones, and this initiative is the newest element of our ongoing campaign to bring our music to fans wherever they happen to be.” In addition to offering DRM-free music from all four labels, Amazon MP3 also features tracks from more than 33,000 independent labels, and now offers over 3.1 million songs from more than 270,000 artists.
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1
so do I have to go to the Amazon store to pick up my card so that I can download the music at home?
Posted by ajmiarka on January 10, 2008 at 2:55 PM (PDT)
2
Funny guy!
Posted by Galley in Greenville, SC on January 10, 2008 at 5:55 PM (PDT)
3
So are the 3 big labels trying to punish their biggest online market - iTunes? It makes no sense that they are willing to throw their DRM free tracks across various other distributors, but are refusing to do so for iTunes customers.
Posted by Alex on January 11, 2008 at 1:51 AM (PDT)
4
They are totally trying to punish iTunes. They’re trying to throw off the shackles of the “golden handcuffs” that is iTunes. They want to sell their music (of course), but they want more control in terms of pricing and probably more profits than iTunes offers. So they’re branching out to other online retailers and offering them better product (DRM-free music) to help give these underdogs a competetive edge over iTunes, the current king of music downloads. This might cost them some profits in the short-term, but in the long-term they’re hoping to wrest control of the online distribution of their music back from iTunes.
Posted by dodo on January 11, 2008 at 6:10 AM (PDT)
5
Which isn’t going to work anyway, because as has been demonstrated by the 2 billion songs sold BEFORE iTunes Plus even existed, Joe Schmoe doesn’t care what the bit rate or this “DRM” thing on his music is if it’s that easy to buy.
Amazon has NOTHING on Apple in the convenience field. (No one is probably really ever going to, since the iTunes Store is right THERE, one click away.)
Posted by Jeremy Avalon on January 11, 2008 at 10:36 AM (PDT)
6
“Amazon has NOTHING on Apple in the convenience field. (No one is probably really ever going to, since the iTunes Store is right THERE, one click away.)”
I don’t know if I’d go this far. I mean I have purchased songs off iTunes and from my iPhone and yes it is quite easy. However, I tried the Amazon music service and it was dead easy as well. The Amazon downloader even finds your music folder and puts all your songs there and into iTunes, all you have to do is purchase the songs, it is just as easy as an iTunes purchase.
The questions I want answered (and I guess only time will tell) are; (1) How long will Amazon’s price scheme last? (2) Will their low cost-high bitrate offerings be only a temporary thing to try and wrangle customers away from iTunes? (3) Will the record companies demand that Amazon then raise its prices or will Amazon’s prices always beat the iTunes Music Store’s? (4) And if Amazon will not raise it’s prices, then why would the record companies agree to sell cheaper DRM-free music through Amazon, when they could be making more profit via the iTMS?
Posted by lvidal91 on January 11, 2008 at 11:14 AM (PDT)
7
What I would like to know is when Amazon plan to market their music to the rest of the world. Then, I can worked up about other issues….
Posted by Ommadawn on January 13, 2008 at 10:15 PM (PDT)