Katie MarsalLanding what may be one of the most significant blows yet against Apple's iTunes, Amazon on Thursday said it would carry Sony BMG's music — providing the download service with unprotected music from all four major music labels while Apple claims only one.
As with the rest of Amazon's catalog, songs from Beyonce and other Sony artists will be copyable an unlimited number of times and can be played with virtually any computer software or handheld audio device, including Apple's iTunes jukebox and the iPod lineup.
The move creates a conspicuous imbalance between Apple and Amazon in terms of their ability to offer music without copy protection, a feature many have considered essential to encouraging more sales of direct-download music while CD sales drop. iTunes was the first to obtain major-label music without digital rights management (DRM) from EMI in spring 2007 but quickly saw its advantage fade as Universal and Warner joined EMI in signing on to Amazon's digital store in the remaining months of last year.
For a third time, the announcement also comes without word of similar deals for competing stores, including current market leader Apple. Universal has back out of long-term deals to provide music to iTunes after complaining about inflexible pricing at the Apple-run store but is commonly believed to have signed with the even lower-cost Amazon MP3 as a way to gauge whether it can reduce Apple's influence on digital music sales.
Amazon's coup further corroborates alleged insider tips from the music chart keepers at Billboard, who reported late last year that Sony BMG would sign with Amazon and participate in a Superbowl promo which would give away as many as one billion free Amazon MP3 song codes hidden underneath Pepsi bottle caps.
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72 Comments
Many years ago, when I worked for a CD-ROM publishing company, the owner said, "Content is king".
Unfortunately without content, Apple is being played by those with. It seems like an "anybody but Apple" strategy to bring Apple down. How soon they forget where they were before iTunes and legal downloading.
Content matters, but not to a company like Apple. The iTMS only exists to provide content for the iPod/iPhone. If Apple didn't sell the iPod, they wouldn't have the store, not the other way around.
Amazon's service integrates very well with iTunes, allowing consumers to very easily purchase content from Amazon, but still buy their hardware from Apple.
In the end, I think it was the labels who were out played by Apple. They did what SJ wanted while thinking they were in control and really sticking it to Apple. Now the content market will start to free up, and people will have no good reason not to buy an iPod or iPhone to play their DRM free music.
Edit: Don't forget that it was Apple who also pushed to break albums up into individual songs. Apple "won" in that situation by having the first digital store to provide single tracks. However, the music was still laced with DRM. Because that was the first step the labels took into digital media sales, the tracks had to have DRM, and only the company who owned that DRM could really benefit. Now, as the labels take their next digital media step, DRM is being eliminated. This time, it doesn't matter who sells the content, as the DRM is gone, and it can be played on anything. Apple wins again.
When will my current purchases be unlocked?
So this is bad for Apple how?
I thought they made their money selling iPods, not music (only a few cents per song?).
I thought the iTunes Music Store was there because no one else supported Mac OS X way back when.
So Apple now can focus investing in better hardware instead of making a better music store.
Sounds like everyone but Apple will have to heavily invest in cut-throat razor-thin margins on unprotected music.
Sounds an awful lot like the discount PC business - something Apple stays clear of.
I think Apple has gracefully exited this market and has acquiesced to others to sell content in that manner.
Content matters, but not to a company like Apple. The iTMS only exists to provide content for the iPod/iPhone. If Apple didn't sell the iPod, they wouldn't have the store, not the other way around.
Amazon's service integrates very well with iTunes, allowing consumers to very easily purchase content from Amazon, but still buy their hardware from Apple.
In the end, I think it was the labels who were out played by Apple. They did what SJ wanted while thinking they were in control and really sticking it to Apple. Now the content market will start to free up, and people will have no good reason not to buy an iPod or iPhone to play their DRM free music.
Edit: Don't forget that it was Apple who also pushed to break albums up into individual songs. Apple "won" in that situation by having the first digital store to provide single tracks. However, the music was still laced with DRM. Because that was the first step the labels took into digital media sales, the tracks had to have DRM, and only the company who owned that DRM could really benefit. Now, as the labels take their next digital media step, DRM is being eliminated. This time, it doesn't matter who sells the content, as the DRM is gone, and it can be played on anything. Apple wins again.
You make some good points.