May 16th, 2007
Amazon.com Joins iTunes; Will Sell DRM-Free Music
By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews
Is a flood of DRM-free music finally starting? We can only hope. Amazon.com has announced plans to launch a digital music store later this year, free of DRM. Now, they say they have 12,000 record labels signed up, but the only major one that I’ve found so far is EMI, the same one whose songs Apple has said it would be selling DRM-free.
Amazon has licences to sell music from 12,000 record labels, including EMI Group’s digital catalogue.
“Our MP3-only strategy means all the music that customers buy on Amazon is always DRM-free and plays on any device,” said Jeff Bezos, chief executive of Amazon. Source: BBC News
We Say: Let’s hope this trend will continue and both stores can sign up other major labels to sell DRM-free music as well.
» Amazon.com Launches Public Beta of Amazon MP3, its DRM-free music store » Blog Archive Alice Hill’s Real Tech News - Independent Tech says:
[…] Earlier this year I wrote that Amazon.com would be launching their own DRM-free digital music store. Well, here it is. Today they announced the public beta of their store, named Amazon MP3. […]
September 25th, 2007 at 7:18 am
Universal Music Group to Test DRM-Free Sales | Etixet Tag Cloud Archive 10.000 Web Site Feed says:
[…] Universal Music Group announced it will be testing sales of unprotected, DRM-free music, starting in August and continuing through January of next year. This follows EMI’s move to unprotected music earlier. However, UMG will not be selling the songs on iTunes, but rather will offer the songs through Amazon, RealNetworks, and retailers such as Best Buy and Wal-Mart. The test will see UMG offering a portion of its catalog—primarily its most popular content—sold without DRM between August 21 and January 31 of next year. The format will be MP3, and songs will sell for 99¢ each, with the bitrate to be determined by the stores in question. Source: Ars Technica […]
January 7th, 2008 at 1:31 pm