Slashdot Mirror
Amazon DRM-Free Music Store Goes Beta
LowSNR writes "Amazon this morning moved their DRM-free music store into open beta. According to the release, 'Since all our digital music downloads are DRM-free, you can play them on anything that plays mp3s including PCs, Macs(tm), iPods(tm), Zunes(tm), Zens(tm), iPhones(tm), RAZRs(tm), and BlackBerrys. Plus, our Amazon MP3 Downloader application makes it easy to add your downloads to iTunes(tm) and Windows Media Player(tm), so you can sync up your devices or burn your music to CD hassle-free.' Not to mention Linux." Of course, without DRM few of the major labels play with them.
But this is hardly the first DRM-free music download service. I've used eMusic off and on for years. How does this compare and how does it improve on the other DRM-free services that already exist? In the past, the main complaint about such services was the lack of mainstream music from major labels. Won't this be the same for Amazon's offering?
"You call it a new way of thinking; I call it regression to ignorance!" -- Operation Ivy
256 kbps VBR
It wont work anywhere but the US, I would buy from it, but it seems their attitude towards the rest of the world seems to consist of "no, fuck off".
Lame, and they need to fix it, but anyhow.
Of course, without DRM few of the major labels play with them.
****
The reality is that 90% of the stuff out there isn't on BMG or one of the few big labels anymore. In any case, it blows a big hole in ITunes. No DRM, cheaper, and a pretty large catalog. I know of several smaller labels that are going to almost certainly stop selling on ITunes as a result.
All Itunes can do at this point is damage control. It's the old Apple proprietary mentality at work again. And Apple getting burnt again by the cheaper and more open alternatives.
Oh - the bitrate appears to be 256K. Another plus - it's actually fairly decent quality.
According to a response on the Washington Post blog post about this, the download manager is required for album downloads, although not for single tracks. And ... "In addition, the download manager only works on XP, Vista, and Mac OS X 10.4 (or higher)." Unfortunately, I can't get to the Amazon site to check right now.
Slightly disreputable, albeit gregarious
I had a quick look at how much music by Sibelius I can find, and it's over 200 albums, which, I think, is eccellent.
Nothing by the less-known composers like Wilhelm Friedemann Bach (the more talented son of J. S. Bach) but still, pretty satisfactory.
Sh*t - and just when I decided to save up some money for next summer.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
EldavoJohn I agree with your comment regarding the fact that un-signed musicians are now able to advertise their content via Amazon.Com's Online Store however there are also many other vectors which are able to be used to promote un-signed artists, of which include Jamendo.Com; although the file format used is primarily an OGG file format, a format which multiple multimedia applications, of which include Microsoft Windows Media Player 11 and Apple iTunes are unable to process without the installation of an additional codec. Amazon.Com has become a serious consideration however it's a pity that that Online Store is only available to residents of the United States Of America, and, being a resident of the United Kingdom, I'm unable to use it. Until the Online Store is available in the United Kingdom, I will continue to perouse Jamendo.Com. http://www.jamendo.com/ - Jamendo.Com - Open Your Ears
I hate to just add a me too-post. But I agree.
While owning the physical CD is not as important (for me), the quality is. For example, I wish magnatune had a broader selection since they let you basically download an image of the CD (most of my favorite early music ensembles are not on there). The only way I'll ever use these services if I can get at least CD quality tracks.
True that!
But my preferences may very well go beyond the stuff I purchase (which, as you stated correctly, I need to login for) and the stuff I 'browse' (as AC or w/o logging into the site). Hence why I thought it could become spyware!
will work for Karma
Or buy a gift certificate with the credit card, then use that to buy the music using any shipping address at all.
t
Is Amazon watermarking or hashing these, so that when they show up on Torrent sites, they can prove wrongdoing?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
I spent an hour on the phone with Amazon because I purchased a track from them in Omniweb. After installing the downloader and purchasing the track, it said I had downloaded the file already, but I hadn't. The guy unlocked the download again and I tried with Safari and it worked fine.
We didn't try with firefox, but omniweb is definitely not supported correctly by the downloader.
As soon as they call a cease-fire in the loudness war, I'll start buying mainstream media again. Until then, I'm stuck paying twice as much for the rare releases on SACD/DVD-A/vinyl. Even then you have to be careful because sometimes you'll end up with basically a rip from a CD onto a hi-def format. And I still regularly buy CDs that were mixed pre-2000. Even a -9 dB RMS isn't horrible, as long as it's not clipped.
Beyond that, I'll never buy a lossy format now that lossless exists. We have the bandwidth, we have the space. That shit should be give-aways. If I have to spend a couple hours to get the track into a somewhat tenable state, I'm not paying. Until they offer something I'm willing to pay for, I'm going to keep stealing, as much as possible, while still supporting my preferred formats. I hope they're right about MP3s killing CD sales. The idea of the recording industry eating itself amuses me to no end, after they nearly convinced me that I don't like music anymore with their fatiguing, over-compressed, horribly clipped masters. That said, I'll gladly pay for well-mastered music. Provided I actually like it of course. Nothing against indie bands, but I generally prefer more polished music, and the few places you can find lossless DRM-free downloads is, well, just not the music I'm looking for.
<xml><I><am><so><damn>Web 2.0</damn></so></am></I></xml>
Control. Apple obsesses over the "user experience" and wants control over everything from pricing to marketing to bundling to the choice of album art. This frightens the labels; if iTunes already does much of the labels' work for them, they may decide to cut out the middleman entirely. The labels have been afraid of becoming obsolete for years now, so they do their best to keep the retail market as fragmented and easy to control as possible; punishing whoever sells too much (or worse, tries to think for themselves) and throwing bones to the weakest. As long as the retailers are relatively weak and afraid of losing their market to the competition, the labels can maintain control.
The labels would probably dump online retailers and sell the music themselves, except that it would open up an antitrust can of worms. That, and it would also involve real work on their part...
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
What I find odd, is that of the small sample I just checked on, there are lots of songs that Amazon has DRM-free that iTMS has, but not DRM-free. Lots of small labels seem to not have their catalogs DRM-free on iTunes...I wonder why that is?
-Ted
-=-=- Quantum physics - the dreams stuff are made of.
That's what my invoice from Apple.com for iTunes says at the top of the email. I used their (Apple's) corporate address - somehow they added New York to it. For serious. Yes, I use the same thing for the US iTunes store, and purchase US iTunes gift vouchers to redeem to access the US TV and movie content. Also works from the UK.