Amazon Launches DRM-Free MP3 Online Store

Amazon today announced the public beta test of its Amazon MP3 service, which offers individual song downloads for 89 or 99 cents per song. The key differentiator between it and competing online music stores, such as iTunes, is that there are no technical restrictions on the use of the downloaded songs.

Amazon’s music catalog boasts 2 million songs, which remains far short of the 6 million songs currently available through iTunes. But unlike Apple’s proprietary FairPlay DRM format, which completely restricts customers from playing the songs on anything except for Apple portable media players or the iTunes program, the Amazon MP3 service will offer entirely DRM-free tracks that will play on any device that can play a standard MP3 file. Every song will also feature 256 kilobit per second encoding, which is a higher bitrate and thus a higher audio quality than many songs found on iTunes.

Amazon has managed to secure agreements with many major artists to sell their music through Amazon MP3. Among the nearly 180,000 artists whose music will be available through Amazon MP3 are 50 Cent, the Beastie Boys, Paul McCartney, Keith Urban, Maroon 5 and the Rolling Stones.

Source: Amazon