Music the Amazon way

Online retailer plans to sell unprotected songs
By ELIZABETH M. GILLESPIE

Associated Press

SEATTLE - Amazon.com plans to open an online music store offering only songs that are free of copy-protection technology and can be played on anything from PCs to portable gadgets such as Apple's iPod or Microsoft's Zune.

The Internet retailer decided to steer clear of digital-rights management technology because consumers want to be able to listen to their music on any device they choose, executives said Wednesday.

The market-leading iPod, for instance, can't play copy-protected music purchased from Napster or RealNetworks Inc.'s Rhapsody store. A Zune can't play tunes bought on iTunes. All players support music in the MP3 format.

Amazon's strategy "is helping to pave the way for a much better, much more customer-centric experience in digital music," said Bill Carr, Amazon's vice president of digital media.
Amazon's music store wasn't unexpected, and the company is tearing a page out of Apple Inc.'s songbook by offering music that's not locked down by digital-rights management technology.
Like Apple's iTunes Store, Amazon will offer DRM-free songs from Britain's EMI Music Group. Amazon also said it will offer millions of tunes from 12,000 unnamed labels. Apple, however, will continue to sell copy-protected tunes.

Amazon said it would announce more labels when the service goes live later this year, but it did not specify a date.

Songs will be sold by the track or album, without a subscription option. Amazon didn't provide prices. Apple plans to charge $1.29 for tracks without DRM - 30 cents more than copy-protected songs. It also said the pricier tunes would feature enhanced sound quality.
Carr said Amazon has always focused on giving customers bargains and hinted that music will be offered at various prices.

"We have a track record of being very competitive on price and offering very low prices to customers," Carr said. "We also have a track record of offering a wide range of price points on our products, too. There's not one or two or three price points on our CD store today - there are many, many different price points."

Last month, EMI agreed to let Apple sell tracks without the copy-protection technology on its iTunes Store. Apple has yet to begin selling the EMI tracks, but has said it would make them available on iTunes this month.

Earlier this year, Apple CEO Steve Jobs called on the world's four major record companies, including EMI, to start selling songs online without copy protection.

Asked how Amazon plans to compete with Apple's market-leading iTunes store, Carr said the Web merchant has a huge customer base, with 66 million active accounts. He also touted the success of its CD store, which in the United States alone offers some 1 million titles.

Amazon could push the digital music market forward by pressuring more major music labels to sell DRM-free music, IDC analyst Susan Kevorkian said.

"We think Amazon's position in the market could be influential enough to move some if not all of the remaining majors toward offering MP3-encoded, DRM-free downloads," she said. "The majors need to be looking at new ways and better ways to sell music to consumers because they're suffering substantial declines in their core CD business."