Oh boy. Apple and Amazon are about to have a huge showdown. Bezos and Crew are set to debut an MP3 downloading store that will feature DRM-free tracks. No word yet on what bit-rate songs will be encoded in, but if it’s anything less than 256kbps, Amazon stands no chance against Apple. As you might have suspected, EMI is backing up Amazon on this move and will be offering millions of songs for download.
Amazon is claiming that a whopping 12,000 record labels are behind the music store. If this is the case, I’d imagine that plenty of really independent and obscure music will be available, so props to Amazon. All that’s left to see is the price point Amazon is going to set. Make it cheap enough and they will come.
Amazon announces DRM-free MP3 music store [Engadget]