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Amazon.com Launches MP3 Store; UMG and EMI As Majors

By Rafat Ali - Tue 25 Sep 2007 04:55 AM PST

As expected, Amazon.com (NSDQ: AMZN) has launched its online music store, called ”Amazon MP3”. It is a DRM-free, MP3 format store with over 2 million songs from more than 180,000 artists represented by over 20,000 major and independent labels, it says. Most songs are priced between 89 cents and 99 cents, with more than 1 million songs priced at 89 cents, the company said. Most albums are priced between $5.99 and $9.99. The two majors that have signed up are Universal Music Group, part of Vivendi (EPA: VIV), and EMI.

The Mp3 format means users can now download to Apple’s (NSDQ: AAPL) iPod, among others. Amazon MP3 has a downloader app., which it says makes it easy to add downloads to iTunes and Windows Media Player, and then sync up to devices.

More in the release and company blog post here.

Posted in: Companies, Amazon.com

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From Tim Tue 25 Sep 2007 08:18 AM

Reactions so far:

1. There appears to be no Mac support for proxy servers. So I’m downloading on EVDO for the time-being and it’s not exactly zippy. Hope they sort out the proxy issue - iTunes works flawlessly under the same circumstances.

2. Purchase of an album was one-click easy.

3. The pricing of the album is $2 cheaper than iTunes DRMed version (the new Lyle Lovett).

4. And here’s the kicker - the bitrate is 256 kbps, same as iTunes Extra, but without the higher price. And it’s vanilla mp3.

I’m a proud Apple fanboy, but I’ll shop at Amazon first if this keeps up.