Bottom Of The Barrel

Jobs called it and Bezos was listening

Back in February of this year, Apple CEO Steve Jobs stunned the music world by calling for the end for Digital Rights Management [DRM] for downloaded mp3 files. This may have seemed like an out-of-character idea for a guy who had built a very successful music business on the backbone of electronically protected mp3 files. However it now looks like Jobs was just reading the market and knew that customers would eventually demand the end of DRM in their music.

Last month Amazon launched its long-awaited digital download service, Amazon MP3, offering 256 Kbps unprotected MP3 music files for 89 to 99 cents. They are also also is undercutting iTunes on some album prices, which range from $5.99 to $9.99, with the top 100 sellers going for $8.99 unless marked otherwise. Apple typically sells albums for $9.99.

So far, Apple have been charging $1.29 price for 256 Kbps unprotected AAC-encoded songs and only those from the EMI Music catalog. All other songs Apple sells for 99 cents are protected by Apple's FairPlay DRM and cannot be copied.

While Amazon appears to be first to market with a DRM free solution they still lack the catalog reach of iTunes, who currently have more than 5 million songs available. Amazon mp3 has only is a little more than 2 million songs from more than 180,000 artists but I'm guessing that number will rise very quickly.

So thank you Mr. Jobs for stating clearly what customers want in their music and thank you Mr. Bezos for listening.

posted by TheWino @ 10:37 AM