Amazon Adds DRM-Free Warner Music

[MacRumors]

http://www.macrumors.com/images/macrumorsthreadlogo.gif (http://www.macrumors.com)

Amazon has announced (http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/djf500/200712270944DOWJONESDJONLINE000547_FORTUNE5.htm) that they have added Warner Music Group's catalog to their MP3 Download Store (http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Fgp%2Fbrowse.html%3Fnode%3D163856011&tag=weeno&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325).

MP3s downloaded from Amazon's store can be played on Apple's iPod and iPhone and contain no digital rights management (DRM) restrictions. Apple provides music without DRM in their iTunes Store but has only been able to secure a contract with EMI.


Article Link (http://www.macrumors.com/2007/12/27/amazon-adds-drm-free-warner-music/)

[Eidorian]

Time to go check what songs I can get now. :rolleyes:

Amazon has done a good job of making purchasing relatively seamless in OS X and Windows.

[Dissonance]

So what is it exactly that is stopping these labels from doing the same thing with iTunes? Is it the fear of Apple remaining so powerful in the music industry? Is Apple not offering the same $/song?

[shamino]

So what is it exactly that is stopping these labels from doing the same thing with iTunes? Is it the fear of Apple remaining so powerful in the music industry? Is Apple not offering the same $/song?
Amazon's pricing is the same or less than Apple's.

I think the music business sees Apple as a threat, and therefore doesn't want to play ball.

This of course, is BS. Apple is a reseller, just like Target and Wal Mart.

Unless you count the fact that the sell songs from unsigned artists. That doesn't make them a label, since they don't produce the music, and don't sell it on any medium other than download, but the "big boys" may feel otherwise.

[Dissonance]

[QUOTE=shamino;4661200]Amazon's pricing is the same or less than Apple's.
QUOTE]

Well, I meant the amount of money that Apple is offering to the labels per track sold. Does anybody know if it is less than what Amazon is offering them, or are there other reasons for the labels being more willing to offer DRM-less music to Amazon?

[theBB]

For some reason, there are a number of indie records (as well as Universal and Warner) that does not provide DRM-less tracks on iTunes even though they sell such songs through Amazon or eMusic. Are these indie labels too lazy or do they have another reason? I have some songs on my wishlist that I am not in a hurry to buy, so I'll hold out a bit more to see if they become available on iTunes.

Assuming Amazon and iTunes offer the record companies the same price, the big ones are clearly trying to bury iTunes. Of course, if they succeed, it won't be long before they start forcing us to buy albums again or increase the prices of each song.

[Brandon Sharitt]

Amazon was already my primary online music store, and now they are getting close to replacing physical CDs.

[reverie]

Steve Jobs' prediction that by the end of 2007 more than half of all songs will be available DRM free has become true, just not on the iTS. And this in spite of the fact that Apple is giving EMI $0.99 per song (for DRM free) and Amazon AFAIR doesn't even always pay the previous standard rate of $0.69 per song.

This is worrying for Apple, OTOH you have to remember that at least for the mass market Amazon's MP3 store is about getting songs on the iPod troublefree, not getting off the iPod and buying a different player. A few informed customers will buy on Amazon because they disapprove of DRM, most customers would just buy there because they like Amazon or because it's a bit cheaper. At the same time many existing iTS customers will keep buying DRMed tracks on the iTS because they still work on the iPod and that's all that matters to them.

Therefore the iTS will remain the #1 store ahead of the Amazon MP3 Store for the foreseeable future, and with each passing quarter in which Amazon does not unseat Apple the record labels will be under more pressure to give Apple the same conditions Amazon received for DRM free tracks.

[Mitch1984]

Labels have a problem because they would rather keep the savings made from digital distribution and packaging rather than pass them on to the customer amongst other reasons.

[Nermal]

Well, I just gave this a go and it basically said "you're not in the US, go away". I don't understand why they (the labels) like to turn down potential purchasers and not get any money! I know that the regional distributors like to get their money too, but surely it's not *that* hard to record which country a song was downloaded in then reimburse the correct distributor for the song.

[swagi]

So what is it exactly that is stopping these labels from doing the same thing with iTunes? Is it the fear of Apple remaining so powerful in the music industry? Is Apple not offering the same $/song?

AAC

As long as Apple wants to promote their AAC standard, I guess the labels won't like it. Support for AAC is growing, but MP3 (though maybe inferior) is a de facto standard.

Simple fact: Most DVD-Players and CD-Players in cars can read MP3 but not AAC. I personally got back to MP3 encoding, as I like to have >100 songs on a CD and my car radio doesn't like AAC.

[NightStorm]

AAC is not an Apple standard. They just chose to adopt it, as it is a newer technology.

[Snowy_River]

I don't know about anyone else, but DRM prevents me from buying digital music on a regular basis. Whenever I see that I can't get a song or album DRM free, I immediately think twice about whether I really want to spend the money. I usually go and look for a used version of the CD instead. Twice recently, I have decided that I wanted to get an album, but because it was only available with DRM, I bought a used CD instead. I don't lose because I still get the music (and often for less than I would have paid for the DRM stuff), but the music companies do because I got the CD used and they don't see a penny of it. If only they'd learn...

Sure, it's great that Amazon has more DRM-free music now. I'll continue to check them, but I still prefer iTunes. Competition on the distributer side is good, but the music labels sure are acting like monopolies on the production side...

[jaduffy108]

AAC

As long as Apple wants to promote their AAC standard, I guess the labels won't like it. Support for AAC is growing, but MP3 (though maybe inferior) is a de facto standard.

Simple fact: Most DVD-Players and CD-Players in cars can read MP3 but not AAC. I personally got back to MP3 encoding, as I like to have >100 songs on a CD and my car radio doesn't like AAC.

AAC indeed. For me, there is no comparison. AAC is far superior in sound quality to mp3. I downloaded one album from amazon. It sounded terrible (256kbps mp3) and the download was very slow compared to the iTS. I also had to "go searching" for the tunes afterwards. No thanks. I'll buy again from the iTS when they offer Apple lossless.

[Snowy_River]

AAC

As long as Apple wants to promote their AAC standard, I guess the labels won't like it. Support for AAC is growing, but MP3 (though maybe inferior) is a de facto standard.

Simple fact: Most DVD-Players and CD-Players in cars can read MP3 but not AAC. I personally got back to MP3 encoding, as I like to have >100 songs on a CD and my car radio doesn't like AAC.

AAC is MPEG-4 Audio. It's not Apple's standard, it's the next generation open format industry standard (i.e. MP3 is MPEG-3 Audio). While I will acknowledge that many car stereos don't support AAC, most music players do. So, it's a case of the car stereo manufacturers needing to get their butts in gear, not Apple needing to stay with yesterday's tech...

[SeaFox]

AAC is MPEG-4 Audio. It's not Apple's standard, it's the next generation open format industry standard (i.e. MP3 is MPEG-3 Audio). While I will acknowledge that many car stereos don't support AAC, most music players do. So, it's a case of the car stereo manufacturers needing to get their butts in gear, not Apple needing to stay with yesterday's tech...

Pioneer's been making car stereos that play back AAC for a couple years now. Here's one (http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Pioneer-In-Dash-CD-MP3-WMA-iTunes-AAC-Player-DEH-P4900IB/sem/rpsm/oid/170676/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do).

[Nermal]

AAC isn't really a "strange" format; even my cellphone plays it.

[swagi]

AAC is MPEG-4 Audio. It's not Apple's standard, it's the next generation open format industry standard (i.e. MP3 is MPEG-3 Audio). While I will acknowledge that many car stereos don't support AAC, most music players do. So, it's a case of the car stereo manufacturers needing to get their butts in gear, not Apple needing to stay with yesterday's tech...

If you have a chance to reach say 70% of the population with AAC and OTOH the chance to reach a certain 100% with MP3, which way to go?

Question was, why labels go to Amazon instead of Apple. My POV is, that it is indeed AAC's fault.

But I have a second idea. You need iTunes to access the iTMS, but from what I've heard (no US resident so no chance to test) you only need a freakin standard webbrowser to use Amazon. Believe it or not, there are some people in the world, really disliking iTunes on their Windows machines.

And I personally switched back to being a physical CD person, yeah, real old school. But I found 'digital booklets' so disgusting. They look cheap compared to their printed counterparts in CDs.

[theBB]

If you have a chance to reach say 70% of the population with AAC and OTOH the chance to reach a certain 100% with MP3, which way to go?

Question was, why labels go to Amazon instead of Apple. My POV is, that it is indeed AAC's fault.

But I have a second idea. You need iTunes to access the iTMS, but from what I've heard (no US resident so no chance to test) you only need a freakin standard webbrowser to use Amazon. Believe it or not, there are some people in the world, really disliking iTunes on their Windows machines.

Yes, AAC is not 100% compatible and yes, some people dislike iTunes, but those are not reasons for labels not to like it. That is for a customers point of view. Heck, more people dislike WMA and the new Zune format, both of which has much bigger compatibility issues than AAC, but they still sell them in those formats. You are confusing the two questions.

[Loge]

You need iTunes to access the iTMS, but from what I've heard (no US resident so no chance to test) you only need a freakin standard webbrowser to use Amazon. Believe it or not, there are some people in the world, really disliking iTunes on their Windows machines.


You can buy single tracks from the web browser, but you need to install their downloader to purchase albums. But again, not US, so not first hand.

[Cleverboy]

It's interesting that everyone is so annoyed about the ongoing ignorance around a newer audio standard (supposedly by Apple) that it has become the most irksome thing to read... someone floating a non-sequitar argument with that misconception as its center.

BRINKMANSHIP

No, the music industry doesn't sell to Apple in non-DRM format as a matter of "brinkmanship". Nothing more, nothing less. Apple does the same thing. Leverage this, negotiate that, act aloof, return to the table.

All I know is that the labels are LOSING MONEY with this strategy of supposedly gaining influence. Apple couldn't care LESS. They already have the music. Moreover, if people still buy iPods and simply shop at Amazon, isn't Apple still getting EXACTLY what it wants? I mean, really now. They refuse to sell their Mp3 formats on iTunes, and pressure people into simply using another store, or stealing. Apple still makes out like a bandit.

I was looking at some Bluetooth headphones recently. Around the same area were an assortment of headphones... many of which said "Mp3 iPod" on them. I picked up another, and it said "iPhone Ready". This was Best Buy... I wasn't even near any other Apple products!

That right music industry. That's right NBC. Keep thinking you're in control. You'll just keep becoming less and less relevant to people who see your content as a "product" they can "buy" and not a "free transmission" they shouldn't pay for. :rolleyes:

~ CB

[clevin]

just show you again nobody wants to be control by one single company. it was the truth back in 1990, it is truth in 2007, and it will always be truth in the future.

[stcanard]

Honestly I don't see the Amazon store making a serious dent in the ITMS market. They need to do some serious work.

I was quite interested when I read about this today. I registered an account with amazon.com to try it out (they wanted an email and username only).

I went through to buy a track. Selected the track. Declined to download their software (since I was trying it out). Got to the purchase phase. Pulled out my credit card, typed in the number and expiry, clicked next.

Then I got to the shipping address (which is required for the CC to be approved), and they only allow you to enter a US address.

Nowhere in any of the leadup was there any mention that this was going to be US only, something that Apple is quite upfront about.

It seriously pissed me off that they raised my expectation, took my credit card number, and then wouldn't sell it to me, with no warning. Worse yet, they never once told me they wouldn't sell it to me, they simply made it impossible to complete the purchase -- the box that I finally failed on was even labelled "State/Province/District" then simply only had the USA State abbreviations. I sat there for a minute trying to figure out if I was missing something.

99.9% of the world doesn't care about DRM. Apple has such a head start inside USA that everyone else is already fighting for dregs. The fight is now for other parts of the world.

Seriously pissing off your customers by refusing to admit they even exist is *not* a good way to break into that market. In the future I will be willing to pay an extra 10c for a better experience from another company.

Amazon had the chance to take me away from Apple, or even put me on a waiting list to be taken away -- I understand the licensing issues, a screen at the beginning saying "Due to licensing issues, the music store is only available to residents of the USA" would be enough -- but instead they not only drove me back to Apple, but upset me enough that I won't be going back to try again.

[Nermal]

Then I got to the shipping address (which is required for the CC to be approved), and they only allow you to enter a US address.

Nowhere in any of the leadup was there any mention that this was going to be US only, something that Apple is quite upfront about.

That's interesting because I got "Please note that Amazon MP3 is currently only available to US customers" right on the front page, however this may be because I was signed in using an existing Amazon account.

[stcanard]

That's interesting because I got "Please note that Amazon MP3 is currently only available to US customers" right on the front page, however this may be because I was signed in using an existing Amazon account.

That makes sense, they couldn't check because they didn't know my address.

But that leads one to wonder -- why did they delay the shipping address so long? There is nothing you can buy from Amazon without a shipping / billing address -- I was quite surprised it wasn't part of the registration process.

Very poor interface design, very poor user experience.

[LethalWolfe]

Amazon's pricing is the same or less than Apple's.

I think the music business sees Apple as a threat, and therefore doesn't want to play ball.

This of course, is BS. Apple is a reseller, just like Target and Wal Mart.


A retailer can still be a threat. For example, Wal-Mart is a big log in the road to legal movie downloading because they are afraid of how it will cut into their DVD sales. And since Wal-Mart is the #1 DVD seller they can strong arm the studios. Currently Apple is in a similar position when it comes to on-line sales which is why some studios and networks are giving Apple the cold shoulder and trying to bolster other retailers because they don't want it to be Apple's way or the highway.

I use both Apple and Amazon depending on selection and price. Some of the stuff I purchased on Amazon (which is easy as pie for US customers) was less than half the price that iTMS had.


Lethal

[Mr. Zorg]

Please Warner, play nice and go DRM-free on iTunes too. Don't make us customers suffer just because you don't like the way Apple pushed you into a market you didn't want to be in (but now realize you need to be in).

[boer]

AAC is MPEG-4 Audio. It's not Apple's standard, it's the next generation open format industry standard (i.e. MP3 is MPEG-3 Audio).
Actually AAC is originally part of MPEG-2 specification and has been copied to MPEG-4 as well.

MP3 however is part of MPEG-1. There is no MPEG-3.

All this and more on Wikipedia.

[swagi]

I was wondering, if the artists sell on Amazon, that openly declined to be on the iTMS, like Jay-Z.

[Cleverboy]

It seriously pissed me off that they raised my expectation, took my credit card number, and then wouldn't sell it to me, with no warning. Worse yet, they never once told me they wouldn't sell it to me, they simply made it impossible to complete the purchase -- the box that I finally failed on was even labelled "State/Province/District" then simply only had the USA State abbreviations. I sat there for a minute trying to figure out if I was missing something.That's pretty STUPID. They should be ashamed of themselves. I guess their store isn't really setup for those kind of "restrictions".

When I first tried out Unbox, I accidentally "purchased" the video twice because I had "one click" turned on, and the system didn't warn me that just because it didn't show up in my "media locker" (when I eventually found it), it doesn't prevent or warn me that the license already existed and that they didn't mind me purchasing more than one license to the same movie without warning. I called them up and asked them about this, and the operator conceded it was kind of F'ed up, but that this was indeed the way the system worked. "Hilariously", even though I'd purchased two licenses, there was a "bug" that only made one license show up in my media locker. They gave me a credit, but said not to expect one in the future.

Meanwhile on iTunes, even when I go to accidentally purchase a FREE song twice... it let's me know I've already purchased it, and I can determine if I still want to go through with it. Why is that so difficult to do?

I may buy music from Amazon in the future, if I'm already there, but they've got an uphill battle. They've apparently worked hard to get software syncing done easily, but now they have to conquer the purchasing process and making that super-smooth for digital media. iTunes clearly has everyone else beat at this point. They make it easy, even on the iPhone itself with the WiFi store. I've heard more than a few people saying they use it regularly. I was surprised to "impulse" a few buys and a couple of albums I probably would have forgotten about if I put it off until later. --Now they just need audiobooks & podcasts.

~ CB

[210]

I've just gone to amazonmp3 and it does say at the top of the page without logging in that it is for US customers only. Admittedly, it isn't that prominent, but it is there.

I really don't think that the iTunes Store has much competition from anyone mainly because of the iPod. Everyone has heard of iPod, nearly everyone has one. As soon as they connect it to their computer, the iTunes Store comes up which is also easy to use. I presume that a lot of people out there won't bother shopping around, not fussed about DRM and more than happy with the sound quality.

The music companies should stop fighting against the iTunes Store. At the end of the day, they're still making money. What they should have done was make DRM-free MP3/AACs available from other sites right from the beginning before the iTunes Store was so big. Now it doesn't make any difference so they should just concede and give customers what they want, everything DRM-free.

[reverie]

I always get a big (German) flag when I visit the amazon.com homepage together with a suggestion to visit the amazon store in my home country (amazon.de). That's much more prominent than the one-liner squeezed in on the mp3 page.

Other than that I find it quite comfortable. For example, unlike in the iTS you can preview a whole album with one click. And the Amazon website is more responsive than the iTunes software (on my iMac G5).

Edit:
Amazon is giving songs away at the moment. For every mp3 player you buy on their website you get an mp3 download credit of $5 to $15. I would buy a nano right now if I was a US resident (it's $179 and you get a $15 MP3 credit on top).

[BenRoethig]

So what is it exactly that is stopping these labels from doing the same thing with iTunes? Is it the fear of Apple remaining so powerful in the music industry? Is Apple not offering the same $/song?

Apple's (read Jobs) tendency to bully companies instead of negotiating with them.

[Island Dog]

I have bought a huge amount of my music through iTunes, but I feel they are starting to drop the ball when it comes to content.

[rockthecasbah]

I really am beginning to dislike the iTunes Music Store, it has lost its appeal for me. It's more expensive, slower, and just isn't a breeze to use these days. For me Amazon is a great solution: it's DRM-free, cheaper, and I don't mind mp3s. The one thing I do like is Apple's shopping cart, but it has now become so slow to load that I think I may even ditch that and not use the iTunes Music Store at all! (I only buy from it now when an album isn't available on Amazon's store and iTunes Plus has it).

I should note that I have had downloading issues twice with Amazon's downloader thing crashing while mid download and i had to get customer service to reactivate the download which took a few hours. If they'd get rid of that downloader software they'd really be in business! It only fails when I'm doing a lot of stuff in iTunes and it's trying to autoload in the new tracks, now i just don't do anything and it's great :p

[shamino]

Labels have a problem because they would rather keep the savings made from digital distribution and packaging rather than pass them on to the customer amongst other reasons.
... and they get to screw the artists more. Their per-song profit from iTunes is higher than CD, but artists get paid less.

The studio typically gets $3-5 from an $18 CD (the rest going to manufacturing, distribution and massive levels of retail markup.) That's about 30-50 cents per song for a typical 10-song album. Less for albums with more tracks. In contrast, they get 65 cents per song for iTunes downloads - with no overhead whatsoever, because Apple is doing all the distribution.

But if you listen to their press releases, you'd think iTunes downloads are making them lose money. And that's what they use to justify scamming the artists out of their share.
Well, I just gave this a go and it basically said "you're not in the US, go away". I don't understand why they (the labels) like to turn down potential purchasers and not get any money!
In many cases, they have signed contracts promising exclusive distribution to specific distributors. They can't break those contracts without paying a lot of money.
As long as Apple wants to promote their AAC standard, I guess the labels won't like it. Support for AAC is growing, but MP3 (though maybe inferior) is a de facto standard.
As others mentioned, AAC is not an Apple-specific standard. It's part of the MPEG spec, just like MP3 is. It's actually quite popular on car stereos (about 30-40% of the units sold today have support.)

But I fail to see how this would affect the studios. Once you're selling a non-DRM format, they're all equivalent, since anybody can transcode files. (AAC codecs for Windows are free and easy to download.)
Simple fact: Most DVD-Players and CD-Players in cars can read MP3 but not AAC. I personally got back to MP3 encoding, as I like to have >100 songs on a CD and my car radio doesn't like AAC.
That would explain why you like it. It doesn't say a thing about why the labels would care. Their goal is to prevent you from playing music everywhere you want, not the other way around.
Question was, why labels go to Amazon instead of Apple. My POV is, that it is indeed AAC's fault.
And I respectfully disagree. If Apple switched to MP3, the labels would not change their opinion at all.

This is all politics. They're trying to build up Amazon as a competitor to Apple, so they can be used as leverage when it comes time to renegotiate iTunes contracts. Nothing more, and nothing less.
But I have a second idea. You need iTunes to access the iTMS, but from what I've heard (no US resident so no chance to test) you only need a freakin standard webbrowser to use Amazon. Believe it or not, there are some people in the world, really disliking iTunes on their Windows machines.
You seem to seriously believe that the labels could care less about convenience, UI or what customers want.

If they cared, they wouldn't be developing CD copy protection schemes that don't work and prevent playback on entire categories of players.
A retailer can still be a threat. For example, Wal-Mart is a big log in the road to legal movie downloading because they are afraid of how it will cut into their DVD sales.
Are you aware that Wal-Mart has offered movie downloads for a year? The service was turned off last week (moving customers to NetFlix), but only because HP stopped supporting the back-end software that was running the service.

That doesn't sound like they're trying to road-block anything.

[aristotle]

Doesn't affect me as I cannot take advantage of it as I'm a Canadian.

[swagi]

I didn't want to quote your whole text, so let me just say that I fully agree to your POV.

Next big thing will be Nokia's Ovi Portal. It will be funny to see, what price tags and what quality you will get from there.

The more choice the better. I personally do not like the iTMS. Apple has made steps in the wrong direction if you ask me. The iTMS gets more and more bloated, each time I visit (like special playlists, iTunes essentials, MiniStore).

My personal negatives to AAC aside, I heavily doubt, that digital music distribution and CD market are concurring fields. In my opinion they have different audiences (casual Billboard listener who just loads the Top songs against music fan, who wants the whole album including artwork).

And here's to hoping that choice will lead to more good products for customers.

*keeping thumbs crossed someone will finally distribute lossless files*

[Steel Wheels]

AAC indeed. For me, there is no comparison. AAC is far superior in sound quality to mp3. I downloaded one album from amazon. It sounded terrible (256kbps mp3) and the download was very slow compared to the iTS. I also had to "go searching" for the tunes afterwards. No thanks. I'll buy again from the iTS when they offer Apple lossless.

Glad I'm not the only one to notice this. I've only downloaded three songs from Amazon so far but, to my ears they don't sound right. It's as if their mp3's have a slight grainy or warbely sound.

[SactoGuy18]

Warner Music went with Amazon.com's MP3 download service for two reasons:

1) Amazon is a highly recognized brand name in the online world.

2) Amazon uses 256 kbps variable data rate MP3 format, which is playable on just about every good MP3 player out there. We forget that only recently did non-Apple portable music players start to support the AAC format favored by Apple.

[weckart]

I am having a hard time taking the drama queens seriously, who are deeply shocked about Amazon.com being for US customers.

You already know that iTMS is country locked.
You already know WHY iTMS is country locked.

So why did you think that it would be any different for Amazon?

[Digital Skunk]

I have bought a huge amount of my music through iTunes, but I feel they are starting to drop the ball when it comes to content.

Amen to that. Their content isn't as thorough as it used to be, and it's now for more of the mainstream. Not that I am going over to the crap that garage bands make and eMusic's limited selections, but having a real competitor to iTMS is good news to me. Maybe I can finally find digital copies of Bone Thugz N' Harmony, and their older albums, and the plethora of 80's music that seem to have been left of off iTMS and the very limited libraries of other online music stores.

[seashellz2]

Its hard to beat iTunes previous exclusive of LCD Soundsystems download only "45:33" at $7.99-now an $19.00 import CD

[LethalWolfe]

Are you aware that Wal-Mart has offered movie downloads for a year? The service was turned off last week (moving customers to NetFlix), but only because HP stopped supporting the back-end software that was running the service.

That doesn't sound like they're trying to road-block anything.
Really? Wal-Mart using it's leverage to keep the prices of legal movie download sales high enough to protect its margins selling physical DVDs thus pretty much killing the legal movie download market sounds like a road block to me. Who would buy a comparatively low quality, movie only download when the physical DVD (better quality, special features, etc.,) was close to the same price? Physical DVD sales are huge for Wal-Mart (not just for revenue but for generating in store traffic as well) and so far they've done a good job defending their turf. Not that Wal-Mart deserves all the credit as Target did some saber rattling over download moving pricing as well.


Lethal

[Mitch1984]

Actually. Walmart sell DVD's & Music at a loss to get people into the store.

[pamon]

i saw more REM tunes on there than before so i'm a happy camper. Will be purchasing the catalog DRM free soon..

[spanading]

I thought I would check out Amazons offering. Good job I just listened to the preview as 256Kb sampling they may be but the couple of tracks I listened to sounded tinny, distorted and thin compared with Apples offering (and yes they were exactly the same songs except for the quality). Nice try Amazon but I guess we had all forgotten how bad MP3s really were now that Apple uses AAC!

Spence