Amazon to Open DRM-Free MP3 Music Download Store

mtnlion1 writes "Amazon.com announced it will launch a digital music store later this year offering millions of songs in the DRM-free MP3 format from more than 12,000 record labels. EMI Music's digital catalog is the latest addition to the store. Every song and album in the Amazon.com digital music store will be available exclusively in the MP3 format without digital rights management (DRM) software. Amazon's DRM-free MP3s will free customers to play their music on virtually any of their personal devices and burn songs to CDs for personal use."

What's the trick?

There must be some kind of trick here, I think. Why is this coming so late? It seems to good to be true, but I really hope it's true :)

Re:What's the trick?

What bitrate will it be? What will it cost? Will iTunes follow? Why is EMI the latest addition, not the first?

Where's my wife and family? What if I die here? Who'll be my role-model? Now that my role-model is gone, gone...

Re:What's the trick?

Well, eMusic already has MP3 songs available, although most of the music is from independent artists. They only charge about 30 cents a song. This is my biggest problem with iTunes. They charge almost the same price as the physical CD for a file transfered over the internet. Cutting out the entire distribution chain, along with losses due to breakage and theft, and there's no physical materials required, and they are still charging $11 for an album. I imagine that Amazons pricing will be right inline with iTunes, which will be either 99 cents a song, or 1.29 like the iTunes songs that they will be releasing in MP3 format.

Buying singles vs. buying used

$11 for an album is the same as an actual CD price?

Except for perhaps some 1980s Michael Jackson albums, the portion of an album that has been on top-200 radio typically costs about 4 USD at iTunes Store, if that.

How long has it been since you've looked been in an actual music store, anyway?

My music store is Lev's Pawn Shop. If I buy two CDs there and one at Pest Buy, then yes, I am averaging less than 11 USD per CD.

Re:What's the trick?

50 cents in bandwidth??? Even at S3 prices ($0.13/GB in bulk), which are surely more than they are paying, a whole album in WAV format would cost about $0.09. MP3 format will be a fraction of that. Their only real cost of distribution is the cost to run the store. Most of the money must be going directly to the record companies.

Re:What's the trick?

Yes, and although there are a lot of people who will pay $.99 for a digital music file, I am not one of them. I think that as people start to have a larger variety of things to spend their money on, they'll see that the $11 they are spending on an album of digital files isn't worth it anymore. They are already complaining that teenagers aren't spending as much on music as they used to. And thats because they have other stuff that they'd rather buy, like video games, designer clothes, cell phones, and a whole bunch of other stuff that kids didn't spend their money on 30 years ago.

Re:What's the trick?

There doesn't have to be a trick. Amazon is late to the party, so they are trying to play this up as much as possible. I like to call it "Viral Marketing". They are playing the DRM-FREE card, but, so is everyone else now. Meh. Is this really news? Amazon has always been about expanding what if offers. This is simply another product.

What might make this special, though, is if charge less than 99 cents or less. That iTunes is charging 30 cents more for DRM-free is a crock. "Look, it is DRM-free, surely that is worth 30 cents more?!" Um, no, it isn't.

I am not the tarket market here, though. I only buy used CDs and have never purchased an MP3. The pricing of new CDs is still too high for my tastes and 99 cents for one song is far too expensive.

Maybe if my money was going to a charitable cause, I might pay 99 cents. I am curious, though, with MP3 over the net distro being the future, what is holding more artists back from being indie and reaping more profit on their own hard work?

Goodbye ITunes

You will not be missed.

Re:Goodbye ITunes Store

You know, I'm about as big of an Apple fanboi as you're likely to meet... But even I am excited about this, and am hopeful that it's the beginning of a change in the industry.

And it could be even bigger: If the music industry can start treating their customers like clients, instead of vermin, then perhaps there's hope for the airlines (motto: we fucking HATE our customers).

A boy can dream.

Premium?

From TFA:

Eric Nicoli, EMI CEO: "They have been an important retail partner of ours, and we are delighted they will be offering consumers EMI's new premium DRM-free downloads in their new digital music store..."

Hmm, what does the word "premium" mean in there? More expensive? Just some subset of their catalog?

Re:Premium?

I believe 'premium content', as used by the ahem 'content industry', means "content that we need to recoup advertising dollars on"

Re:Premium?

Hmm, what does the word "premium" mean in there? More expensive? Just some subset of their catalog?

Oh, I fucking *hate* that word now. It's been devalued by tossers in marketing who'll slap it on anything to give them an air of luxury and use it as an excuse to charge a lot more for marginally better (at best) products.

It's one of those words like "heritage" that has been soiled by its overuse in certain contexts.

Re:Premium?

Non premium songs are displayed in the form of sheet music, and can be played an unlimited number of times, provided that number is 5. Songs may only be played on RIAA approved Xylophones, which can be leased at $70 a month.

I am left to wonder....

I wonder what strings they were able to pull to get this moving faster/better than iTunes has... hurm....

Will it only be music from the EMI catalog?

They have the section of their site where individuals can sell things as "used" , will they expand this so that unsigned bands can sell their MP3's without a recording label behind them?

Re:I am left to wonder....

What I meant was more if they would modify the end user selling something functions they have already. (i.e. the "buy new and used from...") to allow for end users such as bands to sell their own original MP3's over amazon.

This would be a huge boon for local unsigned and independent bands as they could have people just look them up on amazon. A band could have it's own website, which links to amazon to sell the MP3's , saving them bandwidth costs, and the need to manage/deal with e-commerce on a promotional website, while also allowing them to make money from the sale of their music.

Thanks, Steve J?

Wonder whether this move is a case of siding with the 500-lb gorilla (Apple), or if it is aimed at remaining competitive with that gorilla in what Amazon and other retailers perceive as the inevitable death of DRM in music. Either way, customers win.

Big bargining chip against Apple?

If all the Labels begin making their own sites or deals with DRM free-MP3 music files that can play on ANY PLAYER that sort of cripples the iTunes/iPod monopoly wouldn't you think?

The Labels could do what they want now, set up their own sites, charge more for popular songs, less for the "filler", even go back to selling just the whole albulm, the skys the limit.

And by slowly delaying releases on iTunes, eventually pulling their music off of it in favor of their own sites it would really hurt iPod sales. Really after all it's the iTMS store and the access to all that content that sells iPods.

A iPod is just a player, iTunes is a good piece of software that can be copied and without content the iTMS would be dead.

Is Apple's bright star in the sky about to fall?

(Posting as AC to avoid the unreasonable lynch mob of Apple fanatics)

Seriously, MP3 needs to stop. Also, iTunes

OK seriously, are people going to live in the past forever? While I don't intend on getting rid of the mp3's I do have, it isn't mp3's that people should be making, and especially, buying, now. MP4/AAC has been around for a while now, and there is no excuse for non-WMA stores to not be selling it... the quality at any given bitrate is significantly better... and even if you can't notice it because of poor ears, a poor audio system, or just general lack of caring... it's the future.

As for people saying things like "Goodbye iTunes"... why do you think this is any different than what iTunes is doing? iTunes is adding the EMI catalog plus a ton of independant labels (and of course, the other big ones as long as they sign on. Why do you think the Amazon store is any different? I think you can pretty much rest assured that near-everything Amazon gets will be on iTunes... and I have a hard time imagining that anything Amazon releases could beat the integration and ease of use of iTunes and iTunes Music Store... and from there, the iPod.

Re:Seriously, MP3 needs to stop. Also, iTunes

From Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]:

Licensing and patents

As with the MP3 format [3] , no licenses or payments are required to be able to stream or distribute content in AAC format. [4] This reason alone makes AAC a much more attractive format for distributing content, particularly streaming content (such as Internet radio).

However, a patent license is required for all manufacturers or developers of AAC codecs. [5] It is for this reason FOSS implementations such as FAAC and FAAD are distributed in source form only, in order to avoid patent infringement.

AAC requires a patent license, and thus uses proprietary technology. But contrary to popular belief, it is not the property of a single company, having been developed in a standards-making organization.

Re:Seriously, MP3 needs to stop. Also, iTunes

Well, as far as devices goes, here's the reasoning. Because it's currently very expensive (or impossible?) to get chip decoders for OGG Vorbis, because of lack of demand. So, the other option for decoding OGG Vorbis is a generic processor, which if you want one with enough power also costs extra dollars, and requires a lot of extra electricity. In the small-is-good, and our-player-plays-for-54-hours world of portable music players, supporting tons of formats isn't the best idea. Supporting the one format that everybody uses is the best idea.

Re:Seriously, MP3 needs to stop. Also, iTunes

Seems like Cowon [cowonglobal.com] (aka iAudio) has figured these problems out. Many of their players support Ogg and FLAC. I nag them from time to time to add Matroska to the list of formats their video players support.

Re:Seriously, MP3 needs to stop. Also, iTunes

Because it's currently very expensive (or impossible?) to get chip decoders for OGG Vorbis, because of lack of demand.

That may have been true a few years ago, but most of the current Portable Media Players are more than capable of handling the decoding of OGG files and would be pretty trivial to add support to their players. I really think their is a more of a "politcal" reason for not supporting OGG files anymore (not sure what it is, but for some reason companies don't want OGG files catching on).

BTW: I just purchased a Sandisk Sansa e260 series player to be used with my entire collection of OGG Vorbis files - the trick is to simply install Rockbox [rockbox.org] on it to use instead of the crap firmware it comes with.

Re:Seriously, MP3 needs to stop. Also, iTunes

As for people saying things like "Goodbye iTunes"... why do you think this is any different than what iTunes is doing?

Because many of us, myself included, will not, ever, intall iTunes or use the iTMS.

Amazon, OTOH, as evil as we may all consider Bezos' 1-click patent, has the right idea. When you buy digital media from them (or if you buy physical items with a digital manual), it just goes into your account's Media Library. Totally platform (as well as specific-machine) agnostic; If you can run a web browser on any machine anywhere in the world, you can log into your Amazon account and download what you have in your account (and as many times as you want).



I have a hard time imagining that anything Amazon releases could beat the integration and ease of use of iTunes and iTunes Music Store... and from there, the iPod.

Exactly - And I don't want any of the three of those, much less all three.

Not to mention the obvious Slashdot cry of protest, "iTunes on Linux?"

Re:Seriously, MP3 needs to stop. Also, iTunes

I have a hard time imagining that anything Amazon releases could beat the integration and ease of use of iTunes and iTunes Music Store... and from there, the iPod.

Exactly - And I don't want any of the three of those, much less all three.

Especially ease of use. I hate that.

-Ted

Seriously, there is an excuse

MP4/AAC has been around for a while now, and there is no excuse for non-WMA stores to not be selling it...

Excuse #1: Cannot play MP4's on an MP3 player

Explaining to the average music consumer that they need to upgrade their MP3 player to an MP4 player is like explaining to a person with cataracts that they need to upgrade from regular TV to HD. Sure, it's the future, but don't expect them to run to the store any time soon. Without a groundswell of new consumers flocking to MP4, retailers are hard pressed to justify moving to MP4. Again, think HD.

Perhaps someone should find a legislator to sponsor a bill to require music retailers to move to MP4 by 2010 so we can be forced to pay for high-definition music along with our high-definition video.

Quality

Would work for most people for simple convienience. but I personally would not pay unless the quality was at least equal to that of a cd which i could order perhaps for less or same anyway with the actual packaging

lossless (eg FLAC) is not so unreasonable with broadband these days

This will kill iTunes store

No DRM - so this is basically deathblow to iTunes music store. DRM music just can not compete with non-DRM music. Average will see this as "hmm.. music I bought from iTunes will not play on my x device, but music I bought from Amazon store will play on all my devices.. hmm.. there is something wrong with iTunes, I will quit using it."

Re:This will kill iTunes store

It's probably a bit premature for that declaration.

Quality notwithstanding, people are trying to buy music they like, not music they can play anywhere or in whatever format they want, or even the best possible quantity. Naturally those things are important, but if someone wants a single song off an album, they'll buy the DRM version at iTunes if they can't get it anywhere else. They are not going to buy some track they don't know or care about just because it's available at high quality with no drm in their favorite format. Content is of the first importance.

I have to admit, I was pretty taken up with ITMS until a good while back, but then I found eMusic (Thanks to a /. post :). I've since found a great deal of music I never knew I liked (or loved). Now, I have $14.11 credit at ITMS that has been there for about 6 months and will proabably never be used. Oh well.

Another thing: I've actually replaced a pretty good deal of the music I already paid for at ITMS. Some single songs I purchased there were from albums I initially didn't want to purchase whole, but when you cruise the used disc section at Newbury Comics or (in a pinch, since they're more expensive) Strawberries, you find some surprising stuff.

One day, maybe I'll use my ITMS credit for something, but over the last year, I've spent more on hard copies and on eMusic than I've spent on ITMS, and my ITMS spending still adds up to a LOT more than I spent in the 10 years prior to getting an iPod.

Bottom line though, while I'm still more interested in buying music I like than buying formats, I have changed my method of buying that music. That's what's eventually going to put a damper on the ITMS juggernaut. It is certainly not going to happen because a single (or even a few) of the big companies made special deals that allow customers to spend an arm and a leg to get a moderate quality, DRM free copy of the music they steal from the artists. Besides, as mentioned by a previous poster, Jobs is trying to get rid of DRM, he's just dragging his feet about it and seems to be willing to increase the price, rather than dropping it.

Price not set.

No mention of price in the article. While this sounds great, each song could be .50 or $5.00. This will dictate how cool it really is.

Some Commentaries on the Amazon EMI Deal

Here are a couple of commentaries from MP3 Newswire and Digital Music News on the deal. Needless to say, while no-DRM is certainly a step in the right direction they seem to agree that pricing also plays a big part in this picture. Amazon to Sell Full EMI Digital Catalog Without DRM http://www.mp3newswire.net/stories/7002/emi-amazon .html [mp3newswire.net] Resnikoff's Parting Shot: Amazon's Game http://digitalmusicnews.com/stories/051607parting/ view [digitalmusicnews.com]

Meh, call me when it happens

This is a really fun and juicy story. It's just a shame they are talking about "later this year'. Assuming someone doesn't throw a monkey wrench into the works, and assuming this isn't some marketing guy's pipe dream, they still have to actually do it. And they have to do it well.

Apple's iTunes has several things going for it. For starters, if you are showing up you've already got the iPod, the iTunes, etc. The iTunes store has a massive catalogue of music, so much so that I have yet to find something I wanted that it doesn't have. (And I have some WEIRD tastes in music.) And the store sells nothing but music. (Ok, some video too.) But searching for Kraftwerk on iTunes is going to find me Albums from the band. Searching for Kraftwerk in Amazon... well I'll get kitchen appliances.

The prices are also, noticeably, absent from the announcement.

The easiest solution to all of this...

...is to simply make CDs cost a reasonable amount. Oh, and have more than 1 good song on them.

Let customers then encode as they see fit. I certainly don't want to pay for stuff that is lower quality, and cannot be used as a master to re-encode in different formats, or the same format with VBR, etc.

Available Internationally?

It doesn't say in TFA if it will be. I do assume it will be available through the other Amazon channels: www.amazon.co.uk, www.amazon.de, www.amazon.co.jp, www.amazon.fr, www.amazon.ca, etc.

I'd like to be able to buy DRM-free, major tunes online aside from Emusic.com, where, except for a few selected tracks, everything is generally available for purchase anywhere in the world. iTunes, Napster, etc, DRM-infested as they are, would have made a killing by not limiting purchases to the US alone. Until they do open up, and I hope Amazon does, my purchases (and I know I'm not alone) would be limited to Emusic.com and several indie sites.

Corollary: why MP3 and not lossless compression?

MP3s became very popular because the files were relatively small and hence, easier to download. There was a huge boom in downloaded and shared MP3s. But that was then (some 5-8 years ago), and this is now. We gots bandwidth. Why not offer the tracks in a lossless compressed formal, like FLAC? Or heck, uncompressed PCM? If I'm going to pay for the actual song, I want it in the best quality possible.

Re:Corollary: why MP3 and not lossless compression

The reason is that MP3s play in every player without conversion. Most players can't convert on the fly. Media Monkey can, though not to MP4 yet, and even with a fast machine its slower than a straight copy,

I would prefer FLAC (or even APE, since I just transcode to FLAC), but to be popular you have to be simple. MP3 is simple. You also need to appear to be "compact", so they'll proabably send them out at 128 or - if we're luckly 192kb. That may sound silly, but imagine the iTMS commercial that touts "If you download from iTMS, your player will hold twice as many songs as the leading competitor." Stupid but true.

Now, if they were to offer a FLAC option, that would be awesome - but I'm not holding my breath. Somebody needs to swipe the AllOfMP3 engine, if you want to know my opinion. Now that the DRM beast is retreating, you may as well let people download whatever bit rate they want.

Great offensive

The fight against DRM seems to be heating up. MP3s seem to be getting more of the attention with regards to removing DRM. Why is it mostly music? Why aren't we getting the same for movies?

hindsight check

So perhaps gearing the Zune and Vista towards DRM was a bad move on Microsoft's part? Wow, I didn't see that coming.

Competition and Pricing

There is a very simple reason why DRM-free music is likely to be more expensive than the DRMed version, it is more valuable to the consumer. Think about it, what would you rather have? Because the DRM doesn't work anyway the only real difference between DRMed and DRM free music is that DRMed music adds an extra inconvenience. This makes it less desirable to consumers and thus companies will have to charge less to get the same demand. That the price of both DRMed and DRM-free music is high compared to CDs is simply a case of cartels, limited competition and ignorance from consumers. If people only ever bought music from the cheaper sites the more expensive distributors would have no choice but to lower their prices. Prices are high because people put up with it. I don't know if it will last or not, but if the big labels don't bring their prices down I'd think it is only a question of time before some large company takes advantage of the situation and run over them when they least expect it. Just imagine what would happen if Google decided to join the game with Free advert financed downloads. The RIAA wouldn't even know what hit them...

What will the store look like?

I wonder what their store will "look" like. Will it exist entirely within the web browser? Will they help organize your .mp3 library on your computer? Are they going to try to create their own music "ecosystem" to compete with iTunes/iTMS? Amazon could do anything here.

Personally, I think making the store web-based would be a plus. But I think if they don't help manage your library, that's a minus. This being Amazon, I'm going to guess it will be web-based: click to download, and they'll forgo any attempts to help manage your library, unless you install some kind of browser plugin. The plugin would be optional, but if you had it, it would manage your downloads and organize your library for you. I'm just speculating, though. It'll be interesting to see how they actually do it.

Awesome! But...

What bitrate are they offering? TFA makes no mention of this. If the mp3s are 192 kbps or lower, then they're no use to me.

The Ball Is Rolling

Well it looks like the ball is rolling, with Amazon and Apple onboard and sites like Grooveshark and We7 coming up the old DRM based music services may be heading towards extinction.

Re:quality?

Anymore? Arguably it was never enough.

Re:quality?

Yes, but what is the quality? 128k just isn't enough anymore.

What about 640k? I guess that should be enough for anyone.