Amazon Launches Public Beta of DRM-Free Music Store

[RidleyGriff]

I want to see the day when artists will be free to distribute music digitally through a tech company and see industry dinosaurs like Universal eventually become extinct.

Agreed. I'm hoping Trent Reznor follows through with his rhetoric and starts selling new Nine Inch Nails direct after he fulfills his last album requirement with Interscope. No matter what one thinks of his music, all it is going to take is one marquee artist to cross the digital-only picket lines and then the whole thing will come crashing down.

Since you missed the 2nd part:

Let me tell you something, Amazon is like Walmart, the price ain't EVER going up. They can either be a loss leader or will do it just for the principle of it forever. Apple can't compete with retailers like Amazon.

They're counting on consumers like you, my friend.

 

[compuguy1088]

Hopefully this will have an impact on the quality of the offerings at iTunes. 128 bits is just not good enough in my opinion. I envy the people who can´t hear any difference between iTunes and CD quality

For AAC, with most songs it is fine, though for classical, you really need 192 VBR AAC to hear the tones well, or 192 VBR MP3, which is slightly worse than AAC.

 

[MacBoySeattle]

They're counting on consumers like you, my friend.

All of you Apple fanboys amuse me. It can't be Apple that was trying to keep prices high to maintain their 40%, it MUST be labels. Oh, but look at that, Amazon sells the same thing for half price from the SAME labels. Stop drinking the Kool-Aid.

 

[Poll Smoker]

All of you Apple fanboys amuse me.

Coming from the guy named "macboyseattle"...

It can't be Apple that was trying to keep prices high to maintain their 40%, it MUST be labels. Oh, but look at that, Amazon sells the same thing for half price from the SAME labels. Stop drinking the Kool-Aid.

First, it's already been established that Apple isn't making 40% on iTMS purchases.

Second, have you ever heard of a "grand opening" sale? Where a business will discount their product in order to attract new customers?

Third, pull your head out of your ***.

 

[RidleyGriff]

All of you Apple fanboys amuse me. It can't be Apple that was trying to keep prices high to maintain their 40%, it MUST be labels. Oh, but look at that, Amazon sells the same thing for half price from the SAME labels. Stop drinking the Kool-Aid.

The guy with "MacBoy" as his handle is accusing me of being a fanboy (as I post from a Windows machine).

We can agree to disagree here, but I find Universal's move here a complete about face, not only in terms of price, but the DRM-free angle is incredibly suspect, given their previous stances regarding piracy (this is the company that gets $1 per Zune to help compensate for all that "stolen music" that is on everyone's iPods). It doesn't quite add up.

Furthermore, your Walmart analogy does not hold. The labels, in fact, have a contentious relationship with Walmart, as Walmart has pushed for consistently lower and lower wholesale prices (which is why we can get CDs on Amazon for $8.99, and why traditional record stores have gone out of business). If Amazon becomes the dominant online force, they will have no such incentive to force the labels hand towards lower prices on digital downloads -- if people don't want to pay $1.99 for the hot new single, they'll just buy the CD; Amazon wins either way.

Should iTunes lose its dominance, Amazon has ZERO incentive to push down prices for digital downloads in the long run.

 

[pianojoe]

I'd rather have DRM-free AAC at 256kbps... newer technology, smaller files.

And stupid me always thought, 256kb per second were the same number of bytes per second, AAC or MP3.

I think you're trying to say that at any file size given, AAC will sound better than MP3, therefore, at the same audio quality, AAC will provide smaller files.

Oh wait, I didn't understand what I just said.

Anyway...

 

[MacBoySeattle]

The guy with "MacBoy" as his handle is accusing me of being a fanboy (as I post from a Windows machine).

We can agree to disagree here, but I find Universal's move here a complete about face, not only in terms of price, but the DRM-free angle is incredibly suspect, given their previous stances regarding piracy (this is the company that gets $1 per Zune to help compensate for all that stolen music that is on everyone's iPods).

It doesn't quite add up. Furthermore, the Walmart analogy does not hold. The labels have a contentious relationship with Walmart, as Walmart has pushed for consistently lower and lower wholesale prices (which is why we can get CDs on Amazon for $8.99, and why traditional record stores have gone out of business). If Amazon becomes the dominant online force, they will have no such incentive to force the labels hand towards lower prices on digital downloads -- if people don't want to pay $1.99 for the hot new single, they'll just buy the CD; Amazon wins either way. Should iTunes lose its dominance, Amazon has ZERO incentive to push down prices for digital downloads in the long run.

Your speculation about future events with your clouded vision doesn't interest me in the least. Right now, Amazon is selling 89 cent DRM free tracks. You find Universal's move an "About face" because you live in Apple fanboy land where somehow Apple was the victim of the "evil" record companies. I, on the other hand, think that Apple was trying to screw us over with over priced markups on DRM free music, and Amazon seems to do just fine charging far less.

 

[robPOD]

Healthy Competition, always good to see

 

[iQuit]

I'll keep supporting Apple.

I'm a pirate, Apple gives me my digital lifestyle, they deserve my support. I will continue using iTunes as my music download service.

 

[72930]

DRM free FTW!

 

[chicagostars]

breathe. repeat.

Something gets lost in all of the talk on message boards about bitrates of digital music: Most people do not care as long as they can hear the beat and (some) lyrics of their favorite songs, or at least the song that's hot at the moment. Higher quality does indeed retain some of the subtle nuances that make some recored music special. But for the vast majority of the listening public and industry people who are in the BUSINESS of music, getting that instant gratification is the big thing. And sad when you think about the many in a generation of people damaging their hearing for music as flat as the backside of Kate Moss.

 

[aapl.jlo]

I guess you can say this is the first person to beat Apple in selling a product for cheaper, that actually might have a chance against the Music Monopoly. What I want to know is-will people catch on to this? Even with such low prices, won't the majority of songs on iPods and other MP3/MP4 players still be illegal.
There has to be some kind of catch for Amazon to sell it at that low of a price when I look at it. It just looks too good to be true.

 

[JimmyK]

The guy with "MacBoy" as his handle is accusing me of being a fanboy (as I post from a Windows machine).

We can agree to disagree here, but I find Universal's move here a complete about face, not only in terms of price, but the DRM-free angle is incredibly suspect, given their previous stances regarding piracy (this is the company that gets $1 per Zune to help compensate for all that "stolen music" that is on everyone's iPods). It doesn't quite add up.

Furthermore, your Walmart analogy does not hold. The labels, in fact, have a contentious relationship with Walmart, as Walmart has pushed for consistently lower and lower wholesale prices (which is why we can get CDs on Amazon for $8.99, and why traditional record stores have gone out of business). If Amazon becomes the dominant online force, they will have no such incentive to force the labels hand towards lower prices on digital downloads -- if people don't want to pay $1.99 for the hot new single, they'll just buy the CD; Amazon wins either way.

Should iTunes lose its dominance, Amazon has ZERO incentive to push down prices for digital downloads in the long run.

Yeah, ad homs are a pretty weak way to argue a point. Fanboy is a pretty weak attacks anyway.

I agree with you. This is just a ploy by the companies to break Apples dominance. Your prior post about their long range attack plan is pretty much deadon. I mean the record companies have been saying that they want to break their dominance, they don't want Fergie's latest hot tune to be priced the same as a tune from 10 years ago, and they want to bundle tunes together to push unknown artists. This isn't a damn secret. Everyone is pumping up the competition is good theme but there is another reason for their actions and it ain't good.

Why are haters in these forums anyways?

 

[rish]

Establishing Ones Business - In this case Music Store

I've observed that in order for any business to get established, prices of it's goods or services are significantly reduced. Now as consumers we can do what most of us have always done and this is to flock to the cheapest vendor. At some point when the competition has been eliminated the prices do eventually go up. Just look at any physical retail store that has establshed its business and you'll catch my drift.

I'm choosing not to do that this time around. I care little for the music industry and even less for the physical distributors. I still can recall the time when most places here in the UK were charging approx £16.99 for an album and £3.99 for a single with different versions of the same song (lame, really lame).

Amazon won't get a penny from me because I'm in no doubt that the usual business model will take precedence if successful and that will be true also of anyone in the tech industry who has an interest in the windows platform/devices. I'm referring to hiring your music for a subscription fee, an idea that is still being banded about by those predominantly with an interest in the continued fleecing of consumers irrespective of their platform interests (Mac OSX, Linux Windows etc).

Always appreciate your feedback and thoughts.

 

[uNext]

Ucle steve's lies once again resurface and his cult members once again justify his actions.

Remember the "power pc chips are better then x86 (intel blah blah scenario"
but then when the macpro came out all of a sudden it blew the ppc architecture out the water

Sounds to me like he did it again with this. I mean why is he charging 1.29 per drm-FREE track again? and why is amazon only charging 89?

APPLE JUICE IS DELICIOUS I LOVE IT BUT FRUITS DO GET ROTTEN AFTER
A WHILE THEY DONT STAY FRESH FOREVER.

I mean the head poncho did lie to his partner about the amount of money he recieved from atari ...what makes you think his business motives
havent changed?

 

[RidleyGriff]

Your speculation about future events with your clouded vision doesn't interest me in the least.

Clearly it does, friend, as you're responding to it. As I said, we can agree to disagree. You think I'm a fanboy; I think you're naïve, and we'll leave it at that (though I'm guessing you won't).

 

[freediverdude]

That's because it is too good to be true. Amazon and Universal are trying to pull a Walmart and sell the tracks for way less than they'd like, anything to take a bite out of itunes. The only thing is, I'm not sure Amazon has the strength to pull a Walmart anymore. They would have to continue this for quite a long time, and be in it for the long haul, with very little or no profit for several years, to even take a bite. And if the catalogs are similar, and Apple gets miffed, all Apple has to do is say "ok, fine, all our itunes plus tracks are 99 cents and albums $9.99" and Poof! there goes the Amazon store. People aren't going to deal with a separate download and filling out payment info in another place and everything for 10 cents on some tracks.

Sorry Amazon, stickin with itunes. Oh, and by the way, if you want me to be serious about the Unbox service, make the movies widescreen like on itunes or a dvd, not 4:3.

 

[Loge]

Really? I'm in the UK but didn't notice that and I have just bought an OMD album from the Amazon MP3 store, it was very quick and easy and the sound quality is great too.

Matt

Didn't work for me - it wanted a US billing address.

And why on earth does it want to install its own downloader?

 

[MacBoySeattle]

Clearly it does, friend, as you're responding to it. As I said, we can agree to disagree. You think I'm a fanboy; I think you're naïve, and we'll leave it at that (though I'm guessing you won't).

Oh yes, you're SO right. You're right that Apple is the noble one in interactions with content providers. That's why they shopped around for providers for their iPhone to secure a deal that no other handset manufacturer has received in the history of the industry where the service providers provide Apple with revenue sharing. Hey how about this for a theory, Apple was jacking up prices to Universal and wanted too big a piece of the pie like they did with the iPhone and Universal told them to stick it in their you-know-what?

 

[JimmyK]

Hardly a conspiracy theory when the record companies have said they want to break Apple's dominance and this is the second salvo. NBC was first and I expect more. This is business as usual and doesn't involve nobility or evil. Just $.

 

[theBB]

Ok I got the song but it isn't 256kbps it's 244 VBR

Well, I purchased five songs. One of them is about 160kps and the other is 190kbs. I have not checked the others. I am not sure where this 256kbps claim is coming from. I mean they sound OK, but that is about eMusic quality, not more.

 

[MacBoySeattle]

Hardly a conspiracy theory when the record companies have said they want to break Apple's dominance and this is the second salvo. NBC was first and I expect more. This is business as usual and doesn't involve nobility or evil. Just $.

And Apple has tried to screw over other content providers and service providers of their hardware with trying to negotiate for provider revenue and then screwing over consumers when they try to unlock their iPhones by making veiled threats to protect their revenue stream. Lol this is your great Apple.

 

[AgingGeek]

I do think they need a little bit of work, as I don't think there's much of a market for anyone to pony up 99 cents for a 16 second track of opening applause...

Charles Mingus album with clap track

 

[Loge]

Just goes to show Apple were right not to license Fairplay.

 

[astral]

Yes, you are correct; I mistyped in my posting and was going to edit it when I saw your reply. I should have simply said that I would rather have a 256kbps AAC file than a 256kbps MP3 file. The size would remain the same, but the quality would theoretically be better.

Anyone who has purchased a track from Amazon, do they insert any tags to identify that it was purchased from Amazon? I'm not concerned about "privacy" issues, but rather something embedded that can be used to create a smart playlist of Amazon-purchased tracks (so I can use an AppleScript to copy them automatically to my backup drive). Not 100% sure I'll use it, but competition is always a good thing.

yes. for example, the free song is tagged "Amazon.com Song ID: 201470018" in the comments.