Amazon Launches Public Beta of DRM-Free Music Store

[JimmyK]

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.

Business as usual. What don't you understand? Apple is hardly the only company to do this.

Also, you accuse people of having "clouded" reasoning because of their love for Apple (fanboy/koolaid) but the flipside is people's hatred of Apple also "clouds" their reasoning also. It's not hard to figure out where you stand. As much as you invalidate Griff's arguments yours are also suspect.

 

[decksnap]

Business as usual. What don't you understand? Apple is hardly the only company to do this.

Also, you accuse people of having "clouded" reasoning because of their love for Apple (fanboy/koolaid) but the flipside is people's hatred of Apple also "clouds" their reasoning also. It's not hard to figure out where you stand. As much as you invalidate Griff's arguments yours are also suspect.

Except Griff's argument actually holds water. Much of what he's saying has been very public in the media, unlike Macboy's 'theorys'.

 

[citi]

competition is a GOOD thing. Stop complaining. You really don't want a monopoly because that limits choices, and when you don't have choices, financially $&%*$&. I can't believe people are mad because Amazon wants to get into the market with obviously a good product with huge credibility in the retail game. I am a dj and I hate having to buy protected AAC files, burn them and reimport them as mp3s just so my Serato can see the files.

I won't buy DRM free from itunes because I never believed they should have charged more for the same product.

It is a great thing for me.

 

[Shotgun OS]

It will make an impact on the market, but it won't bother me. Not that I buy many digital songs anyways, it's just that it seems to me iTunes is more convienient.

I would be suprised if Apple offered some kind of offer like "Buy X songs, get X songs free", though.

 

[GotPro]

This is the coolest thing I've seen in a long time.

And for those idiots saying that I won't switch for 10Cents a track... you bet your A$$ I will!

If Albums are $9 and are $1 cheaper... that means that by using Amazon I get 10 Albums for the price of 9 on iTunes.

I have purchased over 200 albums since iTunes was released... thats about 20 free albums over the life of my purchase history or $200!!!

That savings is enough to basically keep paying for my new iPods every couple years ;-)

Go Amazon!!!!

 

[kirkbross]

"rights" were never "manageable" in the "digital" world.

You're lucky if you get someone to click on iTunes in the dock rather than Limewire. C'mon people. How basic is the math?

That said...

Is 256k supposed to be high res? Do people just not care anymore?

Is it just me, or are we slowly being aclimated to accept the sound of digital feculence? ...warm, brown, sonic diarrhea flowing from minty pastel green iPods...

Sure, listen to an album at 128kb mp3 for an hour and then at 256kb and it will sound way better... but listen to a good ol' 16 bit / 44.1 CD and then then 256k mp3s... puh leeze...

I wonder if it's actually uncool, nerdy or snobby to actually prefer CD quality to mp3z these days. (I suppose the same people like the look of a one-inch 72 dpi jpg blown up to poster size).

 

[happydude]

just the market

isn't this just all the natural forces of the market at play? for how many years has apple been at the absolute peak in this game. as soon as they opened itunes and ipods up to the pc world, bam! world dominance and apple had total control over pricing since they were never interested in making money off the songs, but using ipod sales to generate the cash. other smaller start ups who charged less per song were out there but couldn't amass the popularity to force their own sector of the market, at least a significant part. it's finally happened where technology in general caught up to apple, amazon being an obvious company to take this up having a considerably sized other portion of their business to subsidize a bit of a loss in the beginning until their profits start to come in. DRM free music is clearly the future, it has much more appeal to the consumer and the internet community in general and since there isn't any restrictions on it, it can play on the ipod so sales of the ipod shouldn't really be effected. i see this as nothing but great future success for apple/industry in general and the consumers. everyone wins.

that said, i'll still be an itunes customer. the $.10 difference is worth the seemless integration between buying the music and having it available for my ipod and on my computer . . . i'm assuming the same will be true for many others.

 

[LxMx]

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.

VBR means variable bit rate, so the file has a higher bitrate in some places than others (more complex parts need more bits to encode).

The way iTunes reports the bitrate of VBR files is by taking the average of the whole file. So the files are indeed 256kbps VBR files, iTunes doesn't call them that though (nor would any other decoder TTBOMK).

Take any VBR file from any source, and the reported bitrate won't match the settings you used. Some will be higher than 256, some will be lower. The quality will however, always be equal to, or better than a 256kbps CBR file (with most modern encoders).

 

[JimmyK]

DRM was the biggest mistake iTunes music store made.

They didn't exactly have a choice.

 

[GotPro]

the $.10 difference is worth the seemless integration between buying the music and having it available for my ipod and on my computer . . . i'm assuming the same will be true for many others.

Ahhh... but it STILL IS SEAMLESS... it downloads them and automatically inserts them into your iTunes library

How cool is THAT????

The other incredible feature I like is the "Preview All" selection... you pull up, say, Alternative... and thousands of songs are there... hit Preview All... and you have instant radio

 

[theBB]

I wonder if it's actually uncool, nerdy or snobby to actually prefer CD quality to mp3z these days.

No, just "delusional."

Based on my purchases, I can tell you not all of the songs are 256kbps, so...

Take any VBR file from any source, and the reported bitrate won't match the settings you used. Some will be higher than 256, some will be lower. The quality will however, always be equal to, or better than a 256kbps CBR file (with most modern encoders).

Well, I hope you are right. In any case, 128kbps AAC purchase is good enough for me as long as I can buy per song, so songs at Amazon is good enough in the end whatever the exact mechanism they use.

 

[Poll Smoker]

No, just "delusional."

Based on my purchases, I can tell you not all of the songs are 256kbps, so...

You've been proven wrong. Move on.

 

[jettredmont]

I don't understand the argument that this is going to sell more iPods. Folks who buy music online (mp3s, aac, whatever) already have a media player (ipod or zune or whatever else) that they use to listen to that music. How is this supposed to help iPod sales? Just because you can buy mp3 on amazon means now you'll buy an ipod?

Of course lets say hypothetically that amazon only sold AAC format. Maybe then I can understand that helping iPod sales becasue iPod is the only music player that plays that format.

The iPod (as a group of products) owns, what? 80% of the MP3 player market? Expanding the ubiquity of portable music helps iPod sales, and has the potential to increase them far more than, say, taking the last 20% of the market could. Apple could work on iPod lock-in for a potential 25% revenue gain, or work on market expansion for a potential 300-500% revenue gain. I think the choice is obvious!

The downside, though, is that "portable MP3 players" also include phones, which far outsell iPods and all MP3-only devices. If phone makers got their acts in gear and cell providers allowed it, people might actually start listening to music on their phones instead of their iPods, and Apple loses revenue. Of course, other than Apple herself, phone companies tend to have the UI design chops somewhere south of the Marquis de Sade, so that's still not a real issue.

 

[happylittlemac]

Looks not bad, I downloaded a song using it, I was asked to download some download manager form Amazon for getting the songs, it just downloads them and really does nothing else. When buying I was asked for a US address but was able to pay with a UK registered credit card just fine.

It's ok but not as easy or as integrated as iTunes music store but it's DRM free and I was even able to get the song "Car Bomb" by Negativland something I can't download from iTunes UK

 

[twoodcc]

Hard to argue with competition. It won't hurt iPod sales, that's for sure.

you are right on that one. now let's see how successful they are

 

[zioxide]

Good, iTunes Music Store ****ing blows. 128kbit with drm? lmao.

Hopefully this competition will make Apple make iTunes suck less.

 

[Silencio]

Seven pages of posts already, and only RidleyGriff and a few others seem to have a firm grasp of what's going on behind the scenes here in the minds of the labels.

If the labels are all of a sudden so interested in selling less expensive, DRM-free digital downloads, let's see them offer Apple the same pricing they've given Amazon. They won't, however, because the labels are desperate to break Apple's dominance in online music sales. This deal is pretty clever on their part because they can spin Apple as being the bad guy being in favor of DRM and higher prices. Not sure how Apple will fight back if the labels don't play ball; should they be expected to take a loss on music sales? They already make negligible profit on iTMS sales.

The one nice thing about all this talk is that Microsoft is nowhere to be heard from. The more DRM is marginalized, the worse Microsoft is going to hurt.

 

[Samiam1]

Got it RIGHT!

I have been there and poked around, and while it is true they have no where near itunes selection, it is really easy to use, DRM free and is iPod compatible. The music quality isn't too bad, and for the most part, it is cheaper.

All in all, a winner in my books. It won't replace ITMS, but it is nice to have a choice.

 

[EricNau]

Seven pages of posts already, and only RidleyGriff and a few others seem to have a firm grasp of what's going on behind the scenes here in the minds of the labels.

If the labels are all of a sudden so interested in selling less expensive, DRM-free digital downloads, let's see them offer Apple the same pricing they've given Amazon. They won't, however, because the labels are desperate to break Apple's dominance in online music sales. This deal is pretty clever on their part because they can spin Apple as being the bad guy being in favor of DRM and higher prices. Not sure how Apple will fight back if the labels don't play ball; should they be expected to take a loss on music sales? They already make negligible profit on iTMS sales.

The one nice thing about all this talk is that Microsoft is nowhere to be heard from. The more DRM is marginalized, the worse Microsoft is going to hurt.

That's very true.

I'm curious to see how Apple handles this.

Not to mention that Apple has some ground to cover as far as prices are concerned, considering that Apple is charging $.30 - $.40 more per song than Amazon. I wonder if it was Apple's idea to charge more for iTunes + songs (I'm starting to think it may have been).

 

[ghall]

I bought a song that I already got from iTunes just to see how the quality differed. Sounds the same to me. Right now I think I'll stick with iTunes, an extra 10¢ won't kill me. Plus I'm a total Apple fanboy. I always have to have Apple's version. But if iTunes doesn't offer what I'm looking for, you bet I'll be buying from AmazonMP3.

 

[Loge]

Looks not bad, I downloaded a song using it, I was asked to download some download manager form Amazon for getting the songs, it just downloads them and really does nothing else. When buying I was asked for a US address but was able to pay with a UK registered credit card just fine.

So did you put something in for "state"? It wouldn't accept mine without it, and only offers US options.

 

[jettredmont]

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.

That sounds like a problem. Amazon seems to be advertising everything as 256kbps. Hmmm. My downloads (Feist's latest album) were all 256kbps, CBR, true to the website claims. Claiming 256 and sending less could lead to a major backlash.

 

[redfirebird08]

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

It's the same thing iTunes has done for years. In fact, the exact same thing in iTunes Plus costs you $1.29 PLUS tax. It's ridiculous that they charge so much for such short songs, but Amazon is not the first to do it.

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/...bum?playlistId=258981074&s=143441&i=258981088

 

[theBB]

Well, only an idiot would believe that labels are begging Apple to offer songs at a cheaper rate, but Apple is standing in the way. Same with DRM.

As I said on the other thread, I am glad Apple refused to license FairPlay. This forces the music labels to offer DRM free tracks if they want a competitor to iTunes, as anything else would not play on iPods. Brilliantly effective!.. Similarly, iTunes puts a ceiling on the price of a download. In the end, Apple is the one who lets me have what I want, although not from iTunes for now. As long as iTunes remain viable and iPods stay dominant, we will get what we want.

Please remember, MS made statements supporting DRM to curry favor with labels when Jobs anti-DRM public letter was published. If Zune was the dominant player, we would never get tracks without DRM.

 

[jettredmont]

that said, i'll still be an itunes customer. the $.10 difference is worth the seemless integration between buying the music and having it available for my ipod and on my computer . . . i'm assuming the same will be true for many others.

The Amazon buying experience, other than starting in your web browser (where, I might add, you can easily bookmark songs you want to return to later, unlike iTMS), is just as seamless. You click "Buy", get a confirmation dialog (unless you say you don't want this confirmation), it downloads in the "downloader" plugin, iTunes opens if it isn't already, the song(s) get placed in iTunes. No interaction necessary other than clicking on "Buy". After that, it all syncs just like anything you'd bought from iTMS.