Amazon has opened the virtual doors to its digital music store.
Amazon MP3 sells DRM-free files, but you're clever, so you probably guessed that by the name. And the fact that we've been
telling you about Amazon's plans to launch a DRM-free MP3 download site for months.
Now that a beta version of the site is live, here's what we can tell you.
- Amazon has signed a deal with EMI, Universal, and a boatload of independent labels.
- Amazon's library includes over 2 million tracks from more than 180,000 artists.
- All songs are in MP3 format, meaning you can play them on pretty much any computer or portable media device.
- Songs are encoded at 256 kbps.
- Most songs will sell for $.89 to $.99.
- The top 100 songs will sell for $.89.
- Album prices range from $5.99 to $9.99, with the top 100 albums going for $8.99 or less in most cases.
- There's a new Amazon MP3 Downloader that lets you download files directly to your iTunes or Windows Media Player libraries.
The funny thing is, this is exactly the same business model companies like
eMusic and
MP3.com were proposing before the rise of iTunes and DRM. Yet somehow now it seems revolutionary.
Of course, we lived in a different world then, when Napster was in its infancy and record labels assumed that if you sold one unprotected MP3 file it would be uploaded to a file-sharing site where 50,000 people would download it for free. Well, they might still believe that, but they also realize that consumers might not want to be locked into a single device for all eternity.
Amazon offers one of the most compelling iTunes competitors around right now. The online retailer offers music downloads from all four major labels. And unlike Apple's iTunes, Microsoft's Zune Marketplace and other digital music stores, Amazon MP3 offers DRM-free music at reasonable prices. There's just one problem -- the service doesn't work outside of the US. Yet. 
Been so busy trying to buy 
