Apple's online music store may have a hard time.
Amazon launched its new music download service this week, which, while still in its infancy, could still be a major headache for Apple. Named simply amazonmp3, the biggest trump card of the store is the DRM-free music download option, which allows you to listen to purchased and saved tunes on any device and at any time.
Prices for downloadable songs range from 89 to 99 cents, and half of the catalog with more than 2 million songs can be purchased at a cheaper price. The company also guarantees that the top 100 songs will also cost 89 cents for users visiting there. The downloadable tracks are in 256 kbit VBR MP3 format on the site, which, as already mentioned, are free of any copy protection.
Major labels have welcomed Amazon's initiative, and Vivendi-owned Universal Music Group and EMI have already signed long-term collaborations with the online empire. In addition, Universal does not have a very good relationship with the operators of iTunes, following the agreement with Amazon, the media giant's plans include the "migration" of their entire palette available in iTunes to amazonmp3.
Apple hasn’t really responded to the new music store so far, however, according to an earlier statement by Steve Jobs, Apple may soon make less DRM-protected content available through the store. In any case, this match is not over yet, Apple has a huge advantage in the market of online music downloads, which will be hard to break.
