Amazon Takes On Itunes With Open Restriction-Free Music Store

By Max Brenn
19:23, May 16th 2007
93 votes
Vote this story
Amazon Takes On Itunes With Open Restriction-Free Music Store

Amazon.com announced it will open a digital music store later this year with millions of songs available free of copy protection technology. The internet retailer has reached an agreement with EMI, home to artists including Coldplay, Norah Jones, Joss Stone and Pink Floyd.

Under the terms of agreement Amazon.com will offer EMI's entire digital catalogue, which is available in a higher quality, DRM-free premium download format, for sale in its new digital music store. The Amazon.com digital music store will exclusively offer tracks and albums as MP3s free of digital rights management (DRM) restrictions.

Last month, EMI announced it would become the first major music group to make its music available online without Digital Rights Management (DRM), a key anti-piracy measure that limits what users can do with purchased songs.

Jeff Bezos, Founder and CEO of Amazon.com, said, "Our MP3-only strategy means all the music that customers buy on Amazon is always DRM-free and plays on any device. We're excited to have EMI joining us in this effort and look forward to offering our customers MP3s from amazing artists like Coldplay, Norah Jones and Joss Stone." Amazon's stores will allow customers to play their music on virtually any personal device, including personal computers, Apple's Macintosh computers, Apple's iPod music players and Microsoft Corp's Zune music players. Users will also be able to burn songs to compact discs.

EMI announced its first deal with the iTunes online music store in April. iTunes sells individual EMI tracks, with their DRM removed, at twice the sound quality of existing downloads for $1.29.

In February in an open letter entitled suggestively "Thoughts on Music". Apple’s boss Steve Jobs urges the music industry to drop DRM. Jobs confessed the fact that the DRM imposed to customers on iTunes was a consequence of tough negotiations with the world’s four largest record companies, which he wanted to bring on iTunes.

"Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats," Jobs wrote. "In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players. This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat."

After EMI and Apple announced the introduction of DRM free songs on iTunes store, Jason Reindorp, head of marketing for Zune, hinted that Microsoft will sell DRM free songs via its Zune platform. “We've been saying for a while that we are aware that consumers want to have unprotected content.”, Reindrop said.



© 2007 - 2009 - eFluxMedia
dotclear

Other News in

Toshiba Announces New Line Of Products

Toshiba unveiled on Wednesday a new line of products, including DVD players, VD recorders, Internet-enabled sets, and LCD TV combos, including the new line of Regza TV’s. The Regza line will be...

Introducing This Years CES

Introducing This Years CES

The International Consumer Electronics Show, which starts Thursday, is definitely one of the most expected events, at least for some devoted gadget-fans. As the annual Consumer Electronics Show...

Cisco Releases Home Audio System

  Cisco Systems has decided, as it has stated, to conquer the consumer market as well as it has the professional crowd. Until now, save for the odd attempt at social networking, nothing...

Jobs-less Macworld, Disappointing

Jobs-less Macworld, Disappointing

You can never say that Macworld is boring – but it can disappoint you. Such was the case of the last Macworld, which has been criticized by tech reviewers for the lack of novelty and low...

Asus S121 Notebook Fitted with SSD, Windows 7

Asus S121 Notebook Fitted with SSD, Windows 7

On Tuesday, Asustek Computer Incorporated introduced an ultrathin, light netbook called the S121, which is fitted with both the yet to be released Microsoft’s Windows 7 operating system and the...

dotclear
Latest videos in Technology
Gadget Show Goes on Despite...
Apple Announces ITunes Price...
Macworld Goes on Without...
Apple CEO says healthy to lead
IIHS: Small Cars Making...

dotclear
Technology You are here: Technology
» Technology   » Gadgets   » Video Games   
E-mail To A Friend Print RSS Text size: Decrease font size Increase font size
dotclear
dotclear
dotclear
Most Popular in Technology
Wikipedia Raised $6.2 Million from DonationsWikipedia Raised $6.2 Million from Donations

» read full story
dotclear

Interested In This Topic?

News Alert will keep you informed. Find out more.
dotclear
Photos Gallery
dotclear
Today's Latest News
Grim mood at US tech-fests

» read full story
dotclear