Warner Music Group Drops DRM for Amazon

SirLurksAlot sends us to Ars Technica for an article about the Warner Music Group's decision to allow DRM-free music downloads through Amazon. This reversal of Warner's former position has been underway for some time, and it boosts the number of DRM-free songs available from Amazon to 2.9 million. Quoting: "Warner's announcement says nothing about offering its content through other services such as iTunes, and represents the music industry's attempt to make life a bit more difficult for Apple after all the years in which the company held the keys to music's digital kingdom.

Comments

Re:Prediction

[Admiral Ag]

"If watermarking is "evil", then we should be similarly outraged about the license plates we're forced to display on our cars."

Aren't you? I've never understood why I should have to drive around with a public ID card. How is it any different from compulsory tattooing of your Social Security number on your forehead for everyone to see? All license plates do is make the cops' job easier at the expense of citizen privacy. I fail to see why the police, who are reasonably competent at catching criminals with only a vague physical description, should not be able to track down a car based on a similar description.

Re:Can't argue with Amazon

[Reality Master 101]

I've downloaded several albums and I'm very happy with it. Odd mix of bit rates (some are about 224 kbit VBR, others are 256 kbit fixed rate), but no complaints with the music.

It's worth pointing out that I actually purchased my first album in about five years a few days ago from Amazon. I've actually *wanted* to buy various music for years, but it simply hasn't been available in MP3 (buying proprietary music from iTunes is completely out of the question). Amazon makes it pretty damn easy to get what you want quickly, much easier than file sharing.

On another subject, it's also interesting that earlier this year Steve Jobs was whining how he wanted to sell DRM-free music, but "they" wouldn't let him. Well, Steve, Amazon is doing it. Why aren't you? Or were we really getting yet another Apple lie, and the whole point really has been all along to sell people music that could only work on iPods?