Amazon pipped at the music post in UK
p2pnet news | Music:- Play.com is being touted as the company to have stolen an important march on Amazon by opening Britain’s first mainstream ‘legal’ DRM-free download store with major label backing.
Says The Register, “EMI tracks will be sold at 320Kbit/s on Play.com. Music from dozens of smaller independent outfits will be encoded at 192Kbit/s, although a spokesman said that all will be bumped to 320Kbit/s. iTunes Plus and Amazon Digital encode at 256Kbit/s.”
But in an update, UK-based digital music retail startup 7digital, “got in touch to say they’ve been offering EMI’s catalogue DRM-free for a year,” says the story.
Meanwhile, “Amazon has yet to replicate its US digital store on this side of the Atlantic, and a spokesman for the firm refused to say if it ever intends to do so,” according to The Register.
Apple iTunes Plus in the UK offers a limited number of DRM-free tracks, “but only in the company’s favoured AAC format”.
So far, EMI is the only major label to sign up to Play.com’s digital store, but, says Wendy Snowdon, head of PlayDigital, it’s, “only a matter of time before the other labels embrace this.”
With its PlayDigital, Play.com is, “also baiting Apple when it comes to track costs too,” says T3.
“Their Top 100 most downloaded songs will cost 65p each, with albums starting at a credit card friendly £4.95.
“As for the other three majors getting involved, Play has told us that they hope to have them on board soon.”
But, “They’ll need to get a shifty on, Amazon MP3 packs the lot and arrives on these shores over the summer.”
Also See:
The Register – Legal, major label DRM-free MP3s hit UK (at last), February 13, 2008
T3 – Play offers DRM free tunage, February 13, 2008
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February 14th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
It’s time for a full on features and prices war in the corporate music download market. iTMS has had a monopoly for quite long enough. $0.10 per track for your choice of encoding from the entire history of recording by 2009. Yes, please.