Amazon.com to launch music service in September: report
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Amazon.com Inc has tentatively set a mid-September target for the launch of its music service, the New York Post reported in its online edition on Friday, citing sources familiar with the situation.
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Amazon.com made its anticipated entry into renting DVDs on the Internet on Thursday, launching a service in the United Kingdom that it says will charge as much as 30 percent less than its competitors.
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SAN FRANCISCO - Amazon.com Inc. , the world's largest Internet retailer, began a digital-music download service to compete with Apple Inc.'s iTunes, selling restriction-free tracks from more than 20,000 record labels.
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Amazon.com Inc. launched a public beta version  of a digital music download store, which allows customers to  buy music without copy protection technology.
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Amazon.com will start selling MP3 music files through its international Web sites this year.
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Amazon.com has added songs from Warner Music Group to the range it sells as MP3 files without DRM (digital rights management), the companies said Friday.The online retailer&#160;launched its music download service&#160;in September and now offers 2.9 million songs without copy prevention technology, including tracks from Warner, EMI, Universal, and 33,000 independent record labels -- although it has still not won over Sony BMG, the only one of the music majors still insisting on the use of DRM.Warner said it also planned to offer album bundles including exclusive tracks through the Amazon service.The move is a blow to Apple&#39;s iTunes Store, which has only persuaded EMI and a handful of independent labels to let it offer their tracks in the&#160;DRM-free iTunes Plus format it launched in May. The rest of the songs available through iTunes come with digital limitations on where they can be played, or how many times they can be burned to a CD.Three formats dominate the market for online music sales: MP3 and AAC, which are both open formats, and WMA, a proprietary format owned by Microsoft.MP3 files do not include provision for DRM: music recorded in that format will play on most digital music players, many mobile phones, and in software readily available for all the major operating systems, including Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux, opening up a huge potential market to Amazon and to other online music stores such as eMusic dealing in unprotected MP3 files.AAC is the format Apple chose for its iTunes Store. Most of the 6 million tracks in its catalog come wrapped in a proprietary DRM layer called FairPlay, although EMI and independents such as Sub Pop, Nettwerk, IODA and The Orchard also allow it to offer higher quality AAC recordings without DRM. The DRM-encumbered tracks will play on authorized iPods, iPhones, PCs, and Macs -- but won&#39;t play on digital music players from other vendors. Unprotected AAC files will also play on many mobile phones, PCs running Linux with the appropriate software, and even Microsoft&#39;s Zune digital music player.WMA files without DRM will play on PC or Macs using Windows Media Player, and some phones and digital music players -- although typically not on the same ones that play AAC files. Microsoft has also introduced a range of DRM systems enabling online stores to sell locked WMA files -- and later abandoned some of them, leaving a certain amount of confusion and doubt about whether devices and songs branded &quot;PlaysForSure&quot; really will play for sure.Industry executives expect initiatives such as iTunes Plus and Amazon MP3, which remove the DRM locks placed on music downloads by an earlier generation of music services, will encourage consumers to buy more music.Warner believes that giving consumers the assurance that the music they purchase can be played on any device they own will only encourage more sales of music, it said Friday.It may also persuade music-buyers to look at other brands of digital music player such as the Zune range from Microsoft, ending Apple&#39;s dominance of that market segment.With the locks off the music, Apple also faces the prospect of a price war with Amazon, which offers 1 million of its MP3 tracks for just $0.89, compared to the $0.99 Apple charges for all its tracks. Before the launch of Amazon MP3, Apple also charged a $0.30 premium for tracks in the iTunes Plus format, which is recorded at a higher quality than the DRM-encumbered versions. Other Amazon tracks sell for $0.99.
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Amazon.com launched a video download service Thursday, ending months of speculation that the Internet retailer would be getting into the online TV and movie business.
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Amazon.com has added songs from Warner Music Group to the range it sells as MP3 files without DRM (digital rights management), the companies said Friday.
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It's the end of an era Amazon.com has now secured the right to sell DRM-free music from all four major labels, snagging Sony BMG.â¦
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Amazon.com on Thursday unveiled a   widely anticipated Internet service offering movies and   television shows that can be downloaded onto consumers'   personal computers.
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Amazon.com has launched a public beta trial of its much-anticipatedÂ music download service.
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Amazon.com Inc. on Wednesday launched a service that lets users watch video purchased on the Internet and sent to a home television hooked up to a TiVo set-top box.
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SEATTLE - Internet giant Amazon on Thursday threw down a gauntlet at Apple by launching Amazon Unbox, its long-anticipated movie-download service. Apple has scheduled a news conference for Tuesday at which it is widely expected to answer by expanding its popular iTunes digital store to include a similar service.
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Amazon.com Inc launched an early  version of its highly anticipated digital music download store,  which is seen as a potential rival to Apple Inc&#39;s dominant  iTunes system.
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The UK Web site of Amazon.com Inc.  is launching a DVD rental service, the online retailer's first foray into a market pioneered by U.S.- based Netflix. Inc.
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The label has announced a deal that allows Amazon to sell DRM-free tracks through its online music store.
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By Elizabeth M. Gillespie THE ASSOCIATED PRESS  SEATTLE -- Amazon.com launched a video download service Thursday, ending months of speculation that the Internet retailer would be getting into the online TV and movie business.