Amazon Launches DRM-Free iTunes Competition

Boston (dbTechno) – Amazon has launched a new music store to compete with the Apple iTunes Store as they have launched Amazon MP3 which will offer DRM-free music.

The early version of the store is launching this week with an initial catalog of songs over 2 million, which is very impressive for an early launch. The highly anticipated store is going to be offering DRM-free music, something which the iTunes store does not offer. Amazon is going to try and compete head to head with iTunes.

The Amazon MP3 service will have cheaper songs than the iTunes service as they will be sold anywhere from 89 cents to 99 cents per song. Amazon has stated over half of the initial 2 million songs are priced at 89 cents.

They also guarantee that their top 100 best selling songs will stay at 89 cents as well. Amazon has deals with Universal Music Group, and EMI as well as many other labels, more than 20,000 in total.

The music can be downloaded in 256kbps VBR MP3 format without any copy protection. This means that once you own the song you can pretty much do anything you want with it.

Apple has intentions of getting rid of the DRM restrictions for iTunes but it has a long way to go. Amazon MP3 is going to make a serious run at the market as Amazon is already the 5th largest audio CD vendor in the world without any digital music downloads factored in.

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