More DRM-Free Music on Amazon

If you haven’t yet tried Amazon’s mp3 download service, you now have yet another reason to give it a shot: Warner Music announced on Thursday that they, too, would begin selling their tunes on Amazon in the DRM-free mp3 format. DRM-free songs can be copied to multiple computers, burned to CDs as many times as you would like, and played on any digital media player, like an iPod or Zune. In the coming week, Warner’s entire music catalog will be added to the Amazon store, bringing the total number of available mp3′s available for download at Amazon to 2.9 million. (The other two big labels, Universal and EMI, are already participating). Mp3′s on Amazon sell for 99 cents, or sometimes 89 cents, which is cheaper than iTunes; the bonus of the tracks being copy-protection free makes the Amazon store my first choice for legal downloads now. It’s important to note that other major music stores also offer DRM-free music – the Zune Maketplace has 1 million or so DRM-free songs, Walmart sells some DRM-free tunes alongside its copy-protected tunes, and iTunes offers iTunes Plus tracks that are copy-protection free, too. What’s great about Amazon, though, is that every track they sell is DRM-free, so you never have to worry. Even though other labels went this route a while ago, Warner had been holding out until now. Warner Music Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Edgar Bronfman Jr. even responded to Steve Jobs’ plea for dropping DRM on iTunes with the following statement: “We will not abandon DRM nor services that are successfully implementing DRM for both content and consumers.” Not surprisingly, Warner is starting the DRM-free “test” with Amazon. If successful, they can roll it over to iTunes without looking too sheepish. Honestly, though, I don’t care – I’m just happy to finally see DRM-free, LEGAL, music become available. I predict that by the end of 2008, DRM will be a thing of the past. For music that is…Hollywood is still clueless on this.

Tags: Amazon, Music