digg

Sweet; this goes a long way towards validating the notion that DRM is inhibiting digital music sales. I've used the Amazon MP3 store, and it's wonderful to have the option. Maybe it can light a fire under Apple's ass to get ALL their music in "iTunes Plus" (DRM-free 256kbit AAC audio) format, and kill their 128kbit DRM'd files once and for all. Personally, I use Amazon for any music unavailable in iTunes Plus format. I'd use Amazon for everything, just so I don't have to worry about whether or not it's DRM'd when I'm buying music, but AAC compression is higher quality than MP3. It would be great if Amazon could offer their songs in 256kbit AAC format as well...

I buy from Amazon and love it. 256kbps bit rate, MP3 encoded using LAME, includes album art. And no copy protection. What more could you ask for?

I have several devices that do not support AAC, so I have no interest in buying unprotected AAC files. If Apple wants to go that way -- they should offer a choice between AAC and MP3 and let the consumer choose.

I buy all of my music from Amazon. Great service. I refuse to buy music in proprietary formats.

What few realize is that the music purchased from Amazon is licensed solely to the purchasor and that license is non-transferrable. Food for thought.

Some competition is exactly what the iTMS needs. More competition = more win. Now if only every song could be DRM free.... if only...

I would like to know why the record industry will let Amazon sell DRM-free music but not the other services (iTunes, Rhapsody, Napster, etc.).

This is excellent. No more itunes for me, now I can use my music on all my players.

It is obvious since amazon's rates are competitive, mp3 trouble-free and high quality, no iTunes and such forced helper applications. And amazon has a few million user base -- which means they just need to put a board at amazon.com to tell about mp3 selling.

Dear Amazon, please roll out this service world wide! We're stuck with iTunes in many other countries.

Just used Amazon for the first time today when it comes to dl music. I used to use Apple when I could rip the drm out. They stopped that though, so I stopped buying from them.

From the article: Amazon's Baltaxe says the best defense against piracy is a good offense. "Songs sold without DRM, at high quality, with album art, that's the best way to get people to buy music instead of stealing it. DRM is a way to punish people who are buying," he says. "Offering a great product at a great price is a way to combat piracy."
No *****. About time someone figured this out. If you make it easier for people to buy your product than pirate it, and you make the price reasonable, people will buy it. You'd think it was rocket science or something.

Amazon MP3 is great for independent bands too - my band just released an album on the digital stores ( http://www.amazon.com/Burning-Out-the-Red-Lights/d ... ) , and Amazon let us choose the pricing level for our album - we chose to sell it at $6.99, which is a better value to our listeners and hopefully will get us more exposure. They were also fastest to stock the album - we sent to all of the stores on 3/14, and Amazon had it for sale the next business day. Still waiting on iTunes, and when it does go up, it'll be $9.99 like the rest of the albums.

I wonder how much of a difference, if any, the Pepsistuff (free songs) has made?

I love the new Amazon service, I mean hey, competition is great for everyone. BUT, some of their releases are transcodes which sucks. No one should legally purchase an album and have flawed audio files. The most recent example of this was Gnarls Barkley's 'The Odd Couple'. other than this odd unintentional error, Amazon's service is great.

I love how convenient Amazon's store is. They just need to do 3 things, (which will come in time of course)
1. offer different bitrates and formats (FLAC, anyone?)
2. offer more competitive pricing. if songs were 20 cents AND FLAC, I would stop pirating.
3. Bigger selection of rare material (this was the most obvious one)

that is how amazon could win.

When NIN released Ghosts, its site was getting hammered but I really wanted to support the cause and get I-IV. Since I couldn't get it on NIN.com, Amazon was another option, and I was impressed by the mp3 downloader.

More competition is welcome, DRM is on its way out, everybody wins!

Amazon online mp3 downloads are the first time I have bought music since allofmp3.com. High-quality, reliable, and a huge selection. I love the amazon website anyway, with all the user reviews. Also, I have to say that amazon customer support is awesome. Recently I had an order that UPS delivered to the wrong house and amazon refunded my money immediately, no-questions asked. I called them up and told them I didn't receive the package, they refunded my money right then. Amazing in this day and age.

Buying from iTunes is just foolish. Amazon offers higher quality, DRM free music in the universal MP3 format @ a lower price. Game Over

According to MacDailyNews (perhaps a bit biased, but worth considering)

http://www.macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comme ...

The report that Amazon is No. 2 came from the "four major labels" and that they provide no numbers to support the claim. Furthermore, the fact that the claim came from them was omitted from news outlets such as Yahoo as appears in this story here.

I'm not going to argue one way or the other, but a beef of mine in general are claims made with no credible or corroborative numbers to back them up. For me the jury is still out whether the Amazon model is any better than iTms. As far as I;m concerned competition is good, but just because someone is #2 doesn't make them a giant killer.

I think the big step that Amazon needs to make now is a desktop store. A centralized locations for music, movies, and maybe in the future, game downloads. Better yet, because amazon doesn't have any particular allegiance to hardware and all their songs are DRM free they could, potentially, make their software sync to any player. If they can keep the browser store going as well (something i wish itunes would set up) I think they could actually be come real competition for itunes.

I also buy all my mp3s from amazon. Hell, they're 10% cheaper, and unprotected.

At one time, the downloader crashed during a download and locked me out. Their customer service promptly re-enabled the download for me since.

I'm really surprised its not getting more attention..

I'll get dugg down for this, but whatever. What they don't tell you is that the gap between Apple at number one and Amazon at number two is astronomical and probably always will be. Amazon is pretty decent compared to most, plus its mass distribution helps, but I'm sorry it is certainly no gold standard. It might well boast a larger DRM free catalogue (for now), but nobody can deny that it is harder to use and less fluent an experience than iTunes.

Everyone reading this site will think it second nature to just drag stuff over into iTunes, but most people using iPods and iTunes like it for the consistency and ease of use Apple offers. They don't want hassle or unnecessary steps, they want simplicity and that is where Apple will always have the upper hand over everybody else. Proof of the pudding is in the sales.

Amazon is doing well and the competition with Apple is definitely a good thing, but the thought of Amazon being number one ... not a chance. Even at the rate they are going now it'd take them years to even match Apple's current success, by which time Apple will have gone many steps further to make their online store and hardware offerings that bit more irresistible.

Another vote for Amazon. I use them all the time now. Great selection of high-quality MP3's and pretty cheap too, I can get most albums for under eight bucks ( a figure that is very reasonable, and low enough to make it not worth the hassle of using IRC or Bittorent)...and they copy just fine into my iTunes library without having to deal with DRM.

It's a no brainer. DRM free, cheaper, higher quality (256kbps) download. I'm one happy ass customer for sure.

It's amusing to hear the major labels complain about someone having 'a stranglehold' on the market. As in 'jaw-dropping irony' amusing.

I like that Amazon doesn't restrict you to using a specific OS - especially now that they finally offer a Linux version of their downloader program.

INACCURATE REPORTING: Please check out: http://www.macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comme ...

Would anyone hazard a guess as to how much Apple really cares about Amazon's success?

That's right. Most probably not a wit.

Amazon's success with DRM free MP3s is clearly a win for consumers. And a huge win for Apple. Why? Because Apple makes money on hardware, and only setup iTunes Store to provide a source for content for their iPods. But the runaway success of the iPod did more than make money for Apple: the iPod also crushed Sony's and Microsoft's hopes for a digital world slaved to those companies DRM file systems. Microsoft especially approaches every market with the intent of locking it's customer base into it's file systems, and hoped to make even more money thru never ending revenue streams by promising to lock down content at the behest of corporations, and damn the consumer. Or don't you remember Microsoft stripping MP3 capabilities out of Windows Media Player in anticipation of dominating all forms of media with it's custom anti-consumer DRM schemes?

Amazon, along with eMusic, is one of the companies that actually understand their market. Why? Because Apple's iPods comprise more than 75% of the digital music player market. Any, and I mean ANY company stupid enough to back Microsoft's WMA DRM schemes to sell music *automatically* loses a full 75% of their target market. Gone. Done. No revenue. Anyone trying to establish a digital download music store that does not support Apples iPod is a bankruptcy in waiting.

It's that simple.The more DRM free MP3 or ACC music available to consumers is more tracks available to play on Apple's iPod.

maybe when Amazon lets Non North American users have access, I will care.

I only buy music from Amazon.

That's good to know they're DRM free, thanks for spreading the word.

Plus Amazon let's you download from Linux, unlike itunes. That's a huge plus for many people.

Buried as inaccurate, and a case of lazy, presumptuous reporting. USA Today got their information by calling the four major labels, NONE of which sell on the previous (and probably still) #2 service, eMusic.com. The "reporters" didn't even get sales figures from Amazon, so how exactly did they decide they Amazon was #2?

Basically the reporter just disregarded the 7 million tracks that eMusic sells every MONTH because they didn't come from the four major labels.

http://17dots.com/2008/03/26/whos-really-number-tw ...

I do dig what Amazon is doing, but they shouldn't get extra credit just because they don't mainly focus on independent-label music.

I'm surprised how digital music has replaced the hard-copy so rapidly. For me digital will never replace the hard copy until CD's are essentially obsolete. Being able to rip music into any format, any quality and as many times as you want for the SAME price is a no-brainer!

If the song is DRM free I buy it from itunes for the convenience of having it downloaded right on my player and it usually having a PDF booklet. If it's not I get it from Amazon.

But I always check on emusic first. Great site for indie and classical music.

Amazon is providing a great service here. I almost never use iTunes any more: Amazon works right there in my browser and I don't have to spend any time afterwards ripping the DRM out.

I really don't care I use all apple stuff but better quality is preferred if at all possible

I think the competition Amazon will provide will benefit everyone in the end. It will push music towards DRM free and could eventually lead to price reductions with the added heat given Apple to protect their franchise. On the other hand, almost all the iPod users I know (and their is a shiaload of them) would have absolutely no idea how to add a song to iTunes, much less their iPod, without downloading it directly from the iTunes store. Digg is full of computer literate people but the average iPod user seems to be lucky to get the thing to even sync. Being the dominate music player, this is bound to be a hurdle Amazon will have to address.

Another thing i love is the amazon downloader just drops the song right into my itunes. Bad side, I've had to go back to itunes for one or two that weren't on amazon.

AFAIK, the music labels and publishers forced Apple to include DRM as part of their contracts. Jobs' public statements have made it pretty clear that he wants to get rid of DRM in the iTunes store.

The labels are experimenting with DRM free music at Amazon. The fact that they can use "DRM free" to beat up Apple in the press is just an added bonus for them. The labels don't care about DRM as long as they can sell music and prevent Apple from gaining any more power.

emusic is much cheaper, and DRM free. AND it doesn't carry any major label *****.

Nobody remembers poor eMusic, but their prices and selection and lack of DRM are the reason why they're the only service I've ever paid for music on and I've used the iTunes app since version 2.

Blah blah blah Amazon.... As long as they don't offer any downloads for europeans they mean nothing to me.

Go go Amazon. No more Itunes.

Competition is always a good thing.

"Amazon's (AMZN) MP3 store - which sells only songs without copy protection - has quietly become No. 2 in digital sales since opening nearly six months ago. That's even though Apple (AAPL) dominates digital music with its iTunes Store (the second-largest music retailer in the world, after Wal-Mart) (WMT) and its hugely popular iPod." ... this should be a good step towards the outright elimination of music with DRM copy protection schemes ...