Amazon to start selling digital music

Amazon to start selling digital music
By Aline van Duyn in New York
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Published: May 16 2007 16:08 | Last updated: May 16 2007 16:08


Amazon.com said on Wednesday it would start selling digital music later this year, planning to offer millions of songs that could be played on any digital music player or computer.

The move comes as more companies seek to move into the growing digital music market, which is dominated by Apple’s iTunes. Most of the music sold on iTunes can only be played on Apple’s iPod digital music player.

Other efforts to rival iTunes, such as Microsoft’s Zune music store, have so far failed to have much of an impact.

EMI Group, the British music group, said it would offer its music catalogue on the Amazon site free of copyright protection, known as digital rights management (DRM). EMI had already agreed to such a deal with Apple. Other music companies have resisted dropping DRM, arguing it could further increase piracy in digital music and cut revenues from sales of songs played on mobile phones and other digital devices.

Aline van Duyn discusses Amazon’s plans to begin selling digital music - and the music industry’s reaction
”All the music that customers buy on Amazon is always DRM-free and plays on any device,’’ said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com chief executive. Amazon did not say how much it would charge for the songs.

Music companies - Universal Music, Warner Music, Sony BMG and EMI - are struggling to increase digital revenues amid a continued drop in sales of physical albums. For every song paid for on iTunes, by far the biggest online store for music, there are many more versions of the songs copied illegally.