Amazon Launches their DRM free music purchase program (beta)

[Diomedes]

http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20070925005710&newsLang=en

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) today launched a public beta of “Amazon MP3,” a new digital music download store with Earth’s biggest selection of a la carte DRM-free MP3 music downloads. Amazon MP3 has over 2 million songs from more than 180,000 artists represented by over 20,000 major and independent labels. Amazon MP3 complements Amazon.com’s existing selection of over 1 million CDs to now offer customers more selection of physical and digital music than any other retailer.

I'm encouraged that they're pushing this option as it's a lot more appealing to me than buying some DRM'd version (which I just flat out won't do), however I'm still interested to see how extensive their indy music section is.  My biggest hang up with itunes continues to be the fact that they just don't sell the music that I want to buy and I have to keep bloody importing it

Also, there's been a much talked about variable price for the Amazon store.  I didn't see it mentioned in the article (so I assume it's still to come) but the basic jist was that the less a track was downloaded, the cheaper it would become (and visa versa).  I still hope to see that in the works as I feel it would really encourage taking a chance on lesser known bands.  I know I've just walked into a CD store and purchased a few random bands (some were hits, some were misses) and I'd enjoy more of that kind of freedom (especially with net radio getting nerfed).

Peace,
Dio

[Donnie (S3 / Jagor)]

Interesting stuff... I'm definitely not a fan of DRM'd music and I try to follow this stuff as closely as possible.  Maybe I'll try the Amazon store here before too long and offer some thoughts here.  Has anyone else tried it yet?

[Mike (jp / Jopan)]

Yesterday I took a look around their store, and sadly they were 0 for 5 on having the artists/albums I was looking for. Simple fact is, the major record labels have to put the music out there without DRM for any of these non-DRM stores to carry the major labels.

[Diomedes]

Yesterday I took a look around their store, and sadly they were 0 for 5 on having the artists/albums I was looking for. Simple fact is, the major record labels have to put the music out there without DRM for any of these non-DRM stores to carry the major labels.

See, I actually don't get how/where their DRM free music is coming from, but they've got some major artists:

Nirvana:
http://www.amazon.com/Nevermind-Nirvana/dp/B000003TA4/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-9127406-4474527?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1190813610&sr=8-1

David Bowie:
http://www.amazon.com/Rise-Fall-Ziggy-Stardust/dp/B00001OH7P/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2/102-9127406-4474527?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1190813619&sr=8-2

And I thought both of them were on major labels.... but they're missing other stuff.

Hrm.