Intellectual Property Law

Amazon launches DRM-free digital music service

There have been some big developments in digital music in recent weeks, mainly from e-commerce giant Amazon.

The website has announced that it is launching a DRM-free digital music service. Not only that, but the service will feature music from all the big 4 record labels: Sony, EMI, Warner and Universal.

This puts Amazon into direct competiton with iTunes, the dominant digital music service from Apple. Unlike the new Amazon service, iTunes music is normally DRM protected, which has put a lot of people off buying music from there. (There is a limited selection of DRM-free music on iTunes, but these files cost more than their DRM-chained contemporaries.)

The Amazon announcement relates to its US store only - you will have to have a US billing address to buy the digital music. This is disappointing for users of Amazon in other countries, so let's hope that the website launches digital music services outside the US in the near future.

The other development is that Apple has agreed to reduce the price of tracks in its iTunes UK store to the same price as iTunes stores in the rest of Europe, following pressure from the European Commission.

Full post as published by IMPACT on January 15, 2008 (boomark / email).