Slashdot Mirror
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."
The 'used' section couldn't support mp3 sales... how would you tell if a 'metallica.mp3' file was really used or not? Basically if they allowed the used section to exist, all their profits from 'new' sales would immediately disappear as 80 zillion kids upload "used" mp3's for sale for 1 cent.
stuff |
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.
Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by mere idiocy.
I believe 'premium content', as used by the ahem 'content industry', means "content that we need to recoup advertising dollars on"
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
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.
-Daniel
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
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.
It's one of those words like "heritage" that has been soiled by its overuse in certain contexts.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
"Faster than iTunes"? This is just a press release stating that the store will open in the future. DRM-free music on iTunes is coming within the next two weeks, and almost certainly before this store actually opens.
I can't believe that Slashdotters are forgetting already -- Apple was the first online music store to push a major label into allowing DRM-free music, and the first to announce such a service. At least now we know whose reality is distorted, eh?
Yes, but if it's EMI + 12,000 labels that are hosted out of someone's garage then it's basically just EMI... The question would be which of the other big labels will get on this train. And if they did, they would have been mentioned by name I would believe.
I'm a fiscal conservative, it's a pity we don't have a political party anymore
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?"
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.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
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?
Bearded Dragon
He's wrong. The big difference?
"One Moment Please.
Connecting to the iTunes Store.
Loading
We are unable to find iTunes on your computer. "
You apparantly cannot buy MP3 (or anything else) without the iTunes application installed. I cannot do that on my workplace machine (well I could, but I won't). I cannot do that on my home machines because they're linux. Well, if I could, I would not. But if I can access a huge library of MP3 for a reasonable price and use just my web browser...well pretty much a given, isn't it?!
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.
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.
Error:
"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." I love how we as a society now have to specify that our MP3s are "DRM-free" just like we do with food products. Steroid-free, DDT-free, pesticide-free... And then they go on to specify all the wonderful capabilities of DRM-free MP3s.
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.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
I cringe when I read phases like "our consumers".
Consumers - mindless drones, who have a singular purpose (to consume)
Customers - that's a little better.
"our consumers" - the people (yes, people) who are put here to consume our products (and this time they will pay a premium to do so!)
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.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
While I am shocked... shocked. The fact is, what I downloaded sounded good enough to keep me coming back for more business. The nature of the product means if they had cheated so that I could see it then I would have stopped.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.