A while back we reported about how Amazon had decided to sell digital music online without any kind of digital rights management (DRM). Amazon has now announced the launch of Amazon MP3, “a new digital music download store with Earth’s biggest selection of a la carte DRM-free MP3 music downloads.” Amazon MP3 will offer more than 2 million songs from over 180,000 artists, all without copy protection. Since the music comes as MP3 and without DRM it is compatible with every portable digital media player ever designed. Amazon has also chosen to use a high bit rate to ensure good quality; 256 kbps.
Most of the songs will be priced at only 89 cents, which is lower than iTunes Music Store, and you’re not forced to use any specific player. The remaining music will cost 99 cents, but there is one exception. The top 100 best selling songs will always cost 89 cents, no matter what they are marked as otherwise. The same goes for the albums; the top 100 best-selling albums will cost $8.99, unless cheaper otherwise. The regular album price namely varies between $5.99 to $9.99.
There are several ways to download from the Amazon MP3 store. One is to use the 1-Click shopping, or perhaps the Amazon MP3 Downloader which can seamlessly add the downloaded songs to your Windows Media Player or iTunes library.
We’re of course glad to see the launch of Amazon MP3 and since we also know that this is the first time several big record labels have decided to sell their music without DRM, this is hopefully the start of something big.
