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Amazon MP3 Vs. iTunes Music Store

Posted by kdawson on from the head-to-head dept.

Ali writes "As discussed here recently, amazon.com has launched a public beta of Amazon MP3, a digital music store that provides DRM-free downloads of over 2 million songs from 180,000 artists and 20,000 labels. In comparison, Apple says the iTunes Store now contains over 6 million songs. Here is a head-to-head comparison."

15 of 310 comments (clear)

  1. Bad info in article. by SocialEngineer · · Score: 4, Informative

    iPod compatibility. Thanks to the lack of DRM, and in particular, Windows-specific DRM, songs purchased from Amazon MP3 will play on an iPod, something that has never been true for a mainstream online music retailer (other than Apple) before. Wow. I wonder if this place has ever heard of eMusic.
    --
    "Better to be vulgar than non-existent" -Bev Henson
    1. Re:Bad info in article. by Jeffrey+Baker · · Score: 5, Informative

      eMusic is certainly not a mainstream music retailer. They don't sell you MP3s the way the grocer sells you a melon. You have to sign up for a month and you're allowed to download a song a day, roughly, although nobody does that. I can go to Amazon and spend 89c on a single song and never return. At eMusic, I have to pay $9.99 at least and then I have to remember to cancel it if I don't want it any more.

    2. Re:Bad info in article. by arth1 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Actually, eMusic does have a $6 per month plan, covering 0-10 songs per month (i.e. averaging at $1.20 per song, or $.60 if and only if you make sure you always download exactly 10 songs in any given billing period.
      Of course, even getting to see their plans without signing up is deliberately made difficult, but if you follow the links around from their legalese pages, you find a well buried link to the plans.

      I have had no luck in finding out what quality the tracks are ripped with, or what software was used to rip them. Nor any other technical details.

    3. Re:Bad info in article. by Zonk+(troll) · · Score: 2, Informative

      Go here: http://www.emusic.com/browse/all.html.

      You can also click on the "Login" button on eMusic.com and then a search box and all the links are there.

      Or install the Firefox search.

      --
      "The Federal Reserve is a fraudulent system."--Lew Rockwell
      End The FED. -
  2. Summary by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative
    For those too lazy to RTFA, here's the verdict:

    Not Too Shabby -- Amazon MP3 is the first online music store that hasn't left me cold. Its advantages are very real:

            * No DRM. No consumer likes DRM, and although Apple hasn't yet released any statistics on how the DRM-free tracks from EMI have sold in comparison with the DRM-encumbered versions of the same tracks, Amazon has done the right thing by eliminating it across the board. Hopefully Amazon's move will give Apple some leverage with the music labels to make more DRM-free tracks available.

            * iPod compatibility. Thanks to the lack of DRM, and in particular, Windows-specific DRM, songs purchased from Amazon MP3 will play on an iPod, something that has never been true for a mainstream online music retailer (other than Apple) before.

            * Low prices. I don't have a sense for how price-conscious the online music market really is, but with many tracks priced below even the cost of Apple's DRM-encumbered tracks, and albums priced even lower, I could see budget-driven consumers or those who buy a lot of music preferring to purchase from Amazon MP3 over the iTunes Store.

            * 1-Click shopping. People do not like creating new accounts for shopping, but there's no question that some people shop from Amazon over other venues purely because it's such a known quantity after years of easy ordering. Ordering via Amazon MP3 isn't as easy as from the iTunes Store, but it's not far off.
  3. Re:I'd rather go Amazon by fangorious · · Score: 3, Informative

    When will people get a fucking clue that the MP4 files that iTunes sells are not an Apple proprietary format? It's the codec developed to replace MP3. It was developed by the same freaking people who developed MP3. You know you can buy songs without DRM from iTunes? Thirty cent price jump for 256 kpbs MP4 (theoretically superior quality to 256 kbps MP3) with no DRM for individual tracks. No price jump if you buy the whole album. And reportedly Amazon's terms of service don't allow re-downloading of transfer of ownership.

  4. iTunes Plus not proprietary... by SuperKendall · · Score: 2, Informative

    iTunes plus uses a standard (DRM free AAC) that is just as well documented and supported as MP3. For goodness sake, the Zune can play iTunes Plus music! And so can snything else that supports AAC, which is most new players. I don't think there's a Linux player around that could not handle them.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  5. Re:I'd rather go Amazon by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    But despite my recommendations, my dad who's a DJ went with iTunes with the ridiculous DRM that went so far that they actually have their own filetype. iTunes uses AAC, which is an MPEG standard. Just like MP3.

    I told him it was insane but he just downloads songs, burns them to a CD, then rips them on the player computer and they're completely un-DRMed as far as I can tell. And that barely loses quality since MP3 to CD quality to top quality MP3 isn't too bad. So yeah it's pretty fast and pretty nice. But no DRM in the first place is good too. You need to tell him about QTFairUse6 (google it). It will remove the DRM without any loss in quality. Takes less than than burning and ripping too.
  6. I'd like to try Amazon by Zonk+(troll) · · Score: 3, Informative

    However, they lock out Linux users. While I can apparently buy indivual songs, I can't buy an album without using their downloader which is Windows/OS X only. I don't feel like booting into OS X just to download some mp3s.

    For now I'll stick to eMusic and DownloadPunk (albums are downloaded as a zip).

    --
    "The Federal Reserve is a fraudulent system."--Lew Rockwell
    End The FED. -
    1. Re:I'd like to try Amazon by jalefkowit · · Score: 5, Informative

      Oh come on now.

      1. They are working on a Linux version of the downloader as we speak.
      2. In the meantime, reports are that the Windows version of the downloader runs fine under Wine. And the only thing you need the downloader for is for full albums, Linux users can buy singles today straight from their browser, no downloader required.

      With this offering, Amazon has done more to make Linux a first-class citizen in the online music space than maybe any other company to date. That's hardly "lock[ing] out Linux users."

      --

      Read my blog.

  7. Re:Redundant? by BungaDunga · · Score: 3, Informative

    And, FLAC doesn't play in mp3 players like iPod etc. Does if you run Rockbox. Granted, that's a small minority of users.
  8. Re:EMusic has lots of promise, but fails currently by gverdouw · · Score: 2, Informative
    Um, how long ago did you guys use eMusic? I've been using it on and off for a couple of years now and all the music I have downloaded have been encoded in VBR mp3.

    So perhaps they have improved since whenever you used them/certain labels use better compression?

    Ahh, found a FAQ entry:

    Q: What is a bitrate? At what bitrate are eMusic's MP3s encoded at?

    A: Bitrate is the number of bits per second used in the encoding process. A higher bitrate (a.k.a encoding rate) usually means a larger size file and higher quality sound. eMusic currently encodes its MP3s using VBR (Variable Bit Rate). VBR is a type of audio compression that different sections of a track at different bit rates. Intricate portions are encoded at higher rates while simpler portions are encoded at lower rates. This is different than standard bit rate encoding, which encodes all sounds at a fixed rate. The average bit rate used for VBR on eMusic is 192k. We choose to encode using VBR to give you the best possible sound quality with the smallest possible file size.
  9. Re:profit margin by Wdomburg · · Score: 4, Informative

    The problem with that, and maybe with the whole amazon gig is the profit margin issue. My impression, perhaps I'm wrong, was that apple was pocketing less than a dime a song for itunes music store.

    Current estimates are about a dime, with "wholesale cost" (i.e. the label's cut) being about $0.70 for majors and $0.60-65 for independents.

    The rest of the cost is supposed to be comprosed of infrastructure, operational expenses, and transaction fees from the credit card companies. I'll eat my own shoes if Amazon's costs aren't lower. They're largely reusing a pre-existing retail infrastructure. And as a major retail operation, they doubtless have a ton of clout with the credit card companies (which are commonly cited as having the next biggest cut after the labels).

    Presumably this is not too server lite either since I'm guessing the songs are watermarked with your ID and then MP3 compressed.

    Nope. The songs are being provided encoded by the labels and the only watermarks identify the retailer, not the purchaser. Bandwidth would be the predominant cost here.

  10. Re:EMusic has lots of promise, but fails currently by jals · · Score: 2, Informative

    Music is 128kbps bitrate. They're basically delivering the absolute minimum quality that I, and many others, consider usable From the eMusic FAQ:

    The average bit rate used for VBR on eMusic is 192k. We choose to encode using VBR to give you the best possible sound quality with the smallest possible file size.

    I still think that's a little unnecessarily low, but just wanted to point out they don't use the absolute minimum.

  11. Song URLs and better search in iTunes by drifterusa · · Score: 2, Informative

    1. Having never wanted to do this before, I thought I'd try the first thing that came to my mind, and it worked. To get a song's URL in iTunes (on a Mac, anyway), right-click (or control-click or do that equivalent thing on trackpads) the song in iTunes and select "Copy iTunes Store URL." Seems to work for everything in iTunes (TV shows, movies, etc.).

    2. To get a more useful search in iTunes, go to the Store menu and select "Search..."

    3. Can't find this track on iTunes, I suspect because they don't have it. Whether that indicates that Amazon's selection of two million tracks has more obscure stuff than iTunes's selection of six million tracks -- and whether that is good or bad -- I can't say.