TECH: Amazon Opens Its DRM-Free Online Music Store

Amazon has fired the first major shot across Apple's bow with the launch of the copy-protection-free (DRM - digital rights management) Amazon MP3 service. Individual songs are supposedly cheaper than those from iTunes at 89-99 cents, and up to $9.99 an album. All tracks are encoded at 256k and can be played back unlimited times on any hardware; be it MP3 players, iPods, mobile phones, etc.

All we need is for this service to be truly international and available to everyone worldwide, and we might see Steve Jobs actually do something about the fallacy that iTunes is turning out to be. Amazon MP3 reportedly has more than 2 millions songs on offer - but whether or not they're all crap remains to be seen.


(Source)