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Amazon MP3 Store to Go Global in 2008
Amazon announced in a press release today their plans to sell DRM-free music worldwide through the Amazon MP3 store beginning later this year. This news is being viewed by some as the latest volley in Amazon's digital music sales war with Apple's iTunes. Since Amazon has completed its plans to offer DRM-free music from all four major record labels (most recently, Sony and Warner), the global availability of the MP3s can only be excellent news for customers.
This is what I've been waiting for, seriously. I will be able to buy my music online, and actually own it now. I don't think anything more than "awesome" need be said.
-Matthew Riley "TofuMatt" MacPherson
I have a website
Why's this tagged "whatcouldpossiblygowrong"?
This may be a bit off topic...but:
Does every single Slashdot article need to be tagged with "What could possibly go wrong?" I mean, seriously, what could possibly go wrong here?
It's nice to hear about these companies that are going to release DRM-free music, but I have yet to see anything real. It's the kind of thing that makes a nice press announcement, but it seems like they don't really have to do anything. With today's technology and the existing infrastructure, it should take about 15 minutes to get this thing up and running. What's the hold-up? I'm still waiting on my Beatles on iTunes that was announced in early 2007!
-Arthur
Cave ne ante ullas catapultas ambules
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Amazon limits the number of tracks you can buy and $$ you can save per download unless you download entire albums using their download software. However, it's only available for Windows and Mac.
eMusic also requires that you download their application, but they offer a nice GUI-based app for Linux. They even claim that it runs on a 2.2.14 kernel! Their selection isn't as good, and their business model is different (subscription vs. per download), but it's worth taking a look.
If nothing, email Amazon and ask for a Linux downloader. Mentioning eMusic ought to help get them moving in the right direction.
I shopped a lot at Allofmp3.com and now at their sister site, mp3sparks.com. However, there is no denying that their insane prices were in part due to not giving anything back to the artists/record companies. You can scream all you want about artists not really getting much back from record companies all you want, but 0.01$ is still more than 0.00$.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
Being UK based I remember last year I got all excited about some obscure MP3's I found on the amazon.com download section - and then spotted the little (Amazon MP3 Purchases are limited to U.S. customers.) disclaimer. D'oh!
I guess it won't be there much longer...
"He Who Dares Wins"
It's easy to charge low prices when you don't actually pay the people who make the music.
What could go wrong? How about:
Music industry starts selling DRM-free mp3, stopping its decline and saving the RIAA for the next clueless battle.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Steve Jobs claimed a while back that he didn't like DRM, and had to do it because of the labels. Now we have Amazon selling true MP3s for all four major labels. So where's Steve?
Wow, could it be that he really wants DRM to lock people into iTunes and the iPod? Nahhhhh, not our Steve! He'd NEVER do that! Maybe he's just not as crafty as Amazon.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
It's a sales war between Universal/Warner/Sony and Apple, Amazon is just the labels' chosen weapon.
What would really be good for customers would be if the labels let everyone sell DRM free music, including Apple, and let the consumer decide where they want to buy their music in a real free-market sales war.
"The worst tyrannies were the ones where a governance required its own logic on every embedded node." - Vernor Vinge
No, because unlike AllOfMp3 these stores are operating according to U.S. (or similar) law; and more importantly to me, purchases from Amazon MP3, iTunes Plus, et al. result in the artists actually getting paid for their work. (Yes, I know, "the evil record labels don't pay their artists that much anyway, blah blah blah"... but if an artist is in a bad contract, at least it's an arrangement that he or she voluntarily entered into; AllOfMp3, on the other hand, is profiting off these artists' work without any compensation or agreement. If you give a crap about your favorite musicians, you don't buy their stuff from AllOfMp3.)
Quality rate, obscure bands not signed by one of the big corporations, etc.Amazon MP3's quality is good, better than iTunes but not quite on par with iTunes Plus. Tracks are encoded with LAME 3.97 at a high VBR bitrate (~230 kbps or so?). The collection is still a tiny bit spotty, but growing fast. It certainly has a better selection than iTunes Plus does, by a long shot. All things considered, it's an excellent service.
My biggest pet peeve with Amazon MP3 is that while you can purchase individual songs through the standard Amazon web interface, purchasing whole albums (and thereby receiving the album discount, where applicable) requires the Amazon MP3 Downloader. On the plus side, this program seems well-written, can pause downloads or resume interrupted ones, automatically imports your songs into iTunes or other MP3 players' libraries, and doesn't behave suspiciously. But why should it be necessary? The downloader is currently available for OS X and Windows, and a Linux version is "forthcoming".
As a long time iTunes customer, I have started buying from Amazon. With iTunes, I would always backup the music that I bought to an audio CDR, then re-import as MP3 -- Amazon selling MP3s saves me real effort.
Buying music online is a good deal, if you can back it up and enjoy it over a long time period.
Well, the creators of the music gets LESS than the credit card company per download. A Swedish artist sad in an interview that he got Euro 0.03 ($0.044) per download on itunes (price per dl ~Euro 1). That was not nearly enough to make a living on. To him it did'nt matter if the song were downloaded on p2p or itunes.
Non the less, this is good news!
What makes you think music corporations should or could work any differently from any other industry? No industry reaches a point where they have "earned their profits". Where is there the point that says "ok stop now, you've earned enough from that"?
I work for the CMRRA (Canadian Musical Reproduction Rights Agency), we are the ones who handle music publishing in Canada. Period. The reality is that this is mostly a move to stimulate sales but not a long term reality. The vast majority of higher selling (charting) product will continued to be delivered with DRM protection. It only stands to reason. Everybody in the music industry realizes that DRM is nothing but a 'speed bump' and not a long term solution to meeting their goals. The reality is, despite the Sony rootkit fiasco, the future will bring either more invasive software at the consumer level or more control at the ISP level. Trust me... I am a not happy about this, I am not impressed with many of the actions of the RIAA and WIPO but this is the reality. You are looking at an entire industry collapsing.... and fast. They are fighting for their very exsistance and loosing. The money is gone. It will very soon be harder and harder for artists to have access to the funds to successfully produce and market their music in the conventional format. Physical distribution will not be consistant... and films are next. You can keep making 400 million dollar movies when you can't make more the 250 million back. It just not sustainable. Things will continue on, however, in a far different model. The problem is that no one can forsee the emerging buisness model and how to transition into this model. Open Source software will replace conventional digital tools for media editing (since the art and beauty of analogue has already died) and do so quite well. Online distribution, which will endup enduring harsh filtering and monitoring. We have brought this on ourselves. I don't agree with ISP filtering/monitoring, root kit technologies, or suing of endusers. I have watched my friends loose their jobs, one after the other for too long. Studios closing left and right, labels laying off staff year after year, great musicians not getting the finances they need because there isn't enough to go around and they haven't got enough "Bling". Last year, for every 32 artist that got signed, only two of those made money, a couple more would break even, and the rest lost money. Record companies are the agencies which provide the funding and marketing resources where conventional banks won't. It all soo sad. I love music. I've invested years of my life and 10's of thousands of dollars on education and equipment. Now I'm back in school at night studying programming and network administration. Perhaps if people took a minute to realize that by not paying for the music they are starving artist, engineers, producers.... people who have worked in the industry for 20 and 30 years are finding themselves at 50 yrs old and having to try and find some sort of job to continue feeding their families. My heart goes out to the 2000+ people who are loosing their jobs with EMI. PLEASE... TAKE A MINUTE TO CONSIDER THE FACTS. Don't let the fat paycheques of the CEO's and ignorant lawsuits of the RIAA blind your eyes to the realities being endured by thousands of people who work hard to make the music you listen to.
With services for developers like EC2 and S3 I feel Amazon is underestimated big time - they are one of the few big companies that really "get it".
Here's his position:
http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughtsonmusic/
Thoughts on Music
Steve Jobs
February 6, 2007
...
"The third alternative is to abolish DRMs entirely. Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats. In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players. This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat. If the big four music companies would license Apple their music without the requirement that it be protected with a DRM, we would switch to selling only DRM-free music on our iTunes store. Every iPod ever made will play this DRM-free music."
...
"Convincing them to license their music to Apple and others DRM-free will create a truly interoperable music marketplace. Apple will embrace this wholeheartedly."