Amazon today launched a public beta of “Amazon MP3,” a new digital music download store featuring a la carte DRM-free MP3 music downloads. Amazon MP3 has over 2 million songs from more than 180,000 artists represented by over 20,000 major and independent labels. Amazon MP3 complements Amazon.com’s existing selection of over 1 million CDs to now offer customers more selection of physical and digital music than any other retailer.
“Amazon MP3 is an all-MP3, DRM-free catalog of a la carte music from major labels and independent labels, playable on any device, in high-quality audio, at low prices,” said Bill Carr, Amazon.com Vice President for Digital Music, in the press release. “This new digital music service has already been through an extensive private beta, and today we’re excited to offer it to our customers as a fully functional public beta. We look forward to receiving feedback from our customers and using their input to refine the service.”
Every song and album on Amazon MP3 is available exclusively in the MP3 format without digital rights management (DRM) software. This means that Amazon MP3 customers are free to enjoy their music downloads using any hardware device, including Macs, PCs, iPods, iPhones, etc.; organize their music using any music management application such as iTunes; and burn songs to CDs.
Most songs are priced from 89 cents to 99 cents, with more than 1 million of the 2 million songs priced at 89 cents. The top 100 best-selling songs are 89 cents, unless marked otherwise. Most albums are priced from $5.99 to $9.99. The top 100 best-selling albums are $8.99 or less, unless marked otherwise.
Every song on Amazon MP3 is encoded at 256 kilobits per second.
Customers can purchase downloads using Amazon 1-Click shopping, and with the Amazon MP3 Downloader, seamlessly add their MP3s to their iTunes or Windows Media Player libraries.
Amazon MP3 has over 2 million songs from more than 180,000 artists, including 50 Cent, Alison Krauss, Amy Winehouse, Ani DiFranco, Arcade Fire, Beastie Boys, Coldplay, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Ella Fitzgerald, Feist, John Coltrane, KT Tunstall, Keith Urban, Koko Taylor, Lily Allen, Madeleine Peyroux, Maroon 5, Marvin Gaye, Miles Davis, Morrissey, Nelly, Nickel Creek, Nirvana, Norah Jones, Paul McCartney, Philip Glass, Pink Floyd, Pixies, Radiohead, Ray Charles, Rod Stewart, Spoon, Stevie Wonder, The Chemical Brothers, The Decemberists, and The Rolling Stones.
Independent labels offering their catalog of music for the first time as DRM-free MP3s include Alligator Records, HighTone Records, Madacy Entertainment, Sanctuary Records, Rounder Records, Righteous Babe Records, Sugar Hill Records, and Trojan Records.
Amazon MP3 beta is here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Winston” for the heads up.]
It’s too bad Amazon chose to use the dinosaur format MP3 instead of the much more efficient AAC format which provides higher-quality results with smaller file sizes and better decoding efficiency (requiring less processing power for decode) than the old MP3 format. Besides that unfortunate format choice and the need to run the Amazon MP3 Downloader application, this looks good (based solely on the press release, as we haven’t tried it).
By the way, users who like this Amazon store can thank Steve Jobs; it’s due to his call for DRM-free music that this even exists. It’s past time that the other music labels who are still clinging to DRM (cough, Middlebronfman, cough) face the music.
WOW. Besides the fact that it’s in MP3 format instead of AAC format, this is the first real competition for Apple iTunes. The albums & singles are CHEAPER than iTunes, and they all come without any DRM at all. Plus, they have a Mac OS X version of their downloader program, so they are not leaving Mac users in the dark! I just bought an MP3 album from amazon.com for $8.99 ($1 cheaper than the same album was on iTunes), all because I didn’t want to go through the hassle of stripping the DRM from the album. Great job, Amazon! Very impressed here.
Finally some competition! Might have to give this a try.
Yeah! Competition!
This is a good thing ffor all, folks.
Reports from users on other sites have been positive.
Just tried it. Works flawlessly. Imports to itunes. Plays on ipod/iphone!
Itunes is done!
Selling my Apple stock today.
I applaud Amazon for this
This actually does look good.
Just another sign that the labels want to break Apple’s stranglehold on the market… which, IMO, would be a good thing on the whole even if it did lead to “variable” pricing in the long run.
Is it possible to convert the MP3 to an AAC file with the same quality and size that you would get from the iTunes store?
Why would you sell your Apple stock? This is a plus for Apple. The iPod is the best MP3 player on the market and holds 70% of it. Amazon is helping to make the record companies obsolete and providing a new source for iPod media. It costs Apple nothing. Apple makes next to nothing on iTunes downloads anyway. It’s only a service to provide media for iPods, sales of which is where Apple makes its money.
The pricing is good, but the music selection is nowhere near that of Apple’s. I just tried searching for some popular artists that I like, such as James Blunt and Keane, but both are not even available.
Unfortunately it’s US only
It is definitely a healthy competition for Apple. Unlike Amazon, though, which must compete on prices, as retail is its only business, Apple can afford to even take a loss on iTunes if it wanted to, in order to compete.
Having said that, I believe Amazon will be modest success at best, for the same reason that made iTunes what it is today. With iTunes, iPod owners have everything in one place. They click, the song shows up on their iPod. It simply cannot be made any easier than that. And Amazon (or any other competitor) will never be able to make it that simple.
As for the Amazon’s catalogue, Universal’s presence alone should give them enough credibility. As much as most people hate labels, and especially Universal, they are by far the biggest, with the greatest stars and back catalogue.
In the end, Universal has set itself up to eat its words no matter how it goes. If they succeed, their DRM-free Amazon approach will re-affirm Jobs’s call for DRM-free music. If they fail with their Amazon venture, it will re-affirm Jobs’s pricing and distribution choices. My guess is that they will not succeed. They will probably not fail miserably and Amazon will probably continue to sell music digitally, but it will not become a significant competitor to Apple.
I wonder if the labels get more than 70% of the price of the download, because 70% wasn’t enough when some fatcat was talking about the ITMS recently. I have bought CDs from Amazon, so I might try this.
RE: “Besides that unfortunate format choice and the need to run the Amazon MP3 Downloader application, this looks good (based solely on the press release, as we haven’t tried it).”
What do you think iTunes is? Based on my experience with iTunes I’m pretty sure I can’t download songs through my browser.
Hooray Amazon. Maybe someday we’ll get descent quality, DRM free movies too.
this is very good, I wonder if they will let independent artists (as opposed to independent labels) on there
well, I stand corrected. With the little downloader application, it will automatically dump the MP3 into iTunes for you.
While the choice of MP3 over AAC may be unfortunate, they made up for that (at least a little bit) by encoding at 256kbps. They also provide album art with the downloads. This way, the stuff is pretty much the same as FairPlay-constrained AAC files from iTunes store (price-wise; quality-wise, it’s more like the $1.30 DRM-free songs).
Definitely not bad at all. The only significant differentiator here will be the catalogue volume, which is dramatically larger on iTunes. Let’s watch how it plays out, although I wouldn’t sell my AAPL stock just yet. Those who suggest this have no idea where Apple is making its money (hint: it ain’t iTunes Music; look to your left – iPod/iPhone/Mac).
@Henri
Oddly the only thing preventing non-US buyers is the State pop-down menu. It’s labelled as State/Province/Region yet only States are listed. Everything else lead me to believe that canadian purchases were allowed. I’ll patiently wait….
Nice.
Simple.
No crap.
APPLE COULD LEARN FROM AMAZON.
Interesting to see that Universal Music Group (part of Vivendi) is one of the major labels offering DRM free music @ 89 and 99 cents. Wasn’t it yesterday that they were complaining that the Itunes music store terms were indecent?? I can’t believe Amazon is giving them more than 70 cents per song (which is the deal they get with Apple), when the song costs 89 cents.
hmnnnn.
methinks this is not so good for the likes of eMusic
MP3 = old and inferior format
AAC = superior format, best compression
MP3 256kbps = AAC 128kbps quality
256kbps = 50% less music in your iPod
Browse based = suck
iTunes Store + the app = all in one rules
and the list goes on and on…
So Universal (and EMI) want to set a precedent of 89 cents for non-DRMed songs, and 89 cents for the Top 100 songs. Since Apple has the largest sales volume, I see no reason why Apple shouldn’t set a lower price point for the Top 100 DRMed and non-DRMed songs to 89 cents. They’d still be the most likely to make a few pennies.
Thomas Fitzgerald states that older songs will sell from 99 cents to $1.94, which sets a precedent of selling older songs for more, not less, money. This is especially revealing.
@Frank,
I downloaded the required download application and when trying to use it, it immediately responded with “we are sorry it is US only” or something like that. I deleted the application subsequently.
Hmmmm…..I smell real competition for once!