Will a DRM-free Amazon music store be enough to topple iTunes?

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Thursday, 17 May 2007 17:10

Opinion and Analysis

Although DRM-free tracks from EMI format are due on iTunes at any moment, Apple won’t be the only store with DRM-free songs on sale as Amazon prepares its own iTunes onslaught in mp3 format later this year.

‘Later this year’ will see the launch of Amazon’s own completely DRM-free mp3 format music store, with EMI’s entire digital repertoire and songs from 12,000 other record labels, although the other major labels who haven’t as yet decided to take the DRM-free plunge won’t be represented.

Of course, if the other major labels DO decide to copy EMI’s strategy, then Amazon would likely immediately carry their digital collections as well, as would iTunes and any other music store likewise selling DRM-free music. Reports online suggest that Warner and Universal are testing DRM-free tracks to gauge customer response, although their official position is that they still support DRM, as does Sony. 

Amazon says that the mp3 files will work on any device that plays mp3 files, which includes PCs, Macs, iPods, Zunes and Zens – and that you can burn the songs to CDs for personal use, with no burn limit restrictions noted.

Amazon’s founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos waxed most lyrically about the deal, saying in a statement that: “Our mp3-only strategy means all the music that customers buy on Amazon is always DRM-free and plays on any device. We're excited to have EMI joining us in this effort and look forward to offering our customers mp3s from amazing artists like Coldplay, Norah Jones and Joss Stone.”

EMI’s CEO, Eric Nicoli, joined in the song and dance by saying that: “Amazon.com is known around the world for the unique experience it offers music customers through features such as customer reviews and personalized recommendations”.

Nicoli noted that Amazon is already a strong partner responsible for lots of sales of music on CDs, and said that: “They have been an important retail partner of ours, and we are delighted they will be offering consumers EMI's new premium DRM-free downloads in their new digital music store. We think having a trusted destination like Amazon.com offer a high-quality digital music product that will play across a number of devices gives consumers more options and will be a significant boost for the overall digital music market.”

The question is whether or not this development is enough to threaten iTunes. The answer to that depends on a number of factors, all of which are in flux as we speak, making things most interesting.

Amazon will likely engage in ‘competitive pricing’ to undercut Apple, at least with some music, which can now be easily downloaded to PC, imported with iTunes and transferred to iPod, all without having to have made the purchase through iTunes.

Naturally, the scenario involves using two interfaces thus making it more complicated than iTunes itself, and that will dissuade some people from bothering with the extra hassle. But for more tech savvy users, it’s very easy to do, and if Amazon’s prices are more competitive, it will save money.

We know that Apple will sell its DRM-free tracks in 256k AAC format, while Amazon will sell them in at an as-yet unannounced bitrate in mp3 format. 128k mp3’s are often touted as ‘CD Quality’ but higher bitrates, such as 192k, are preferred as they sound much better than the generally tinny 128k reproduction.

The AAC format is much better at compressing music than mp3, and while plenty of mp3 players on the market can play AAC files, not all of them do. The one true universal format, and the one that most people have heard of is mp3. For most, it’s more than good enough.

That said, Apple’s DRM-free tracks from EMI will play on many mp3 players and are known to come in a high quality format – we can only hope that Amazon will do the same with higher quality mp3 files.

So, the question is - will Amazon be able to defeat iTunes with their new store? Read onto page 2 to find out!