Amazon launches DRM-free music service

Just as the DRM-filled, iTunes competitor wannabes Virgin Digital and Sony’s Connect drown quiet deaths in the pool of online music, web giant Amazon jumps right in.

The Silicon Valley Insider weighs in on its pros and cons:

The downsides: The store doesn’t work nearly as quickly or smoothly as iTunes, almost certainly because it is browser-based. Navigation is clumsy, and getting a good sense of what’s in the store is pretty tough — it’s a hunt-and-peck operation. Amazon wants you to install its own MP3 downloader, which you’ll need if you’re buying an entire album. And its catalog isn’t as robust as iTunes’, even when comparing offerings from the same labels: EMI, for instance, sells the Rolling Stones’ Let It Bleed via iTunes, but Amazon only seems to have the Stone’s later-era music.

The upside: The songs Amazon does sell are usually priced at 89 cents to 99 cents a piece (though some cost more), they download reasonably quickly — and they work on iTunes. You haven’t been able to say that about any other digital music store up till now, and it’s potentially a huge deal: Amazon can now offer music as an impulse purchase to its customers — and provide the labels with their first realistic Apple alternative.

From reading the reviews out so far, media fans appear to have forgiven Amazon for the messiness of Unbox and in general are pretty pleased with the new music offering. How’s it working out for you?

This entry was posted by Ruth Suehle on Tuesday, September 25th, 2007 at 10:24 am and is filed under Truth, The shame of downloading.. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.