Amazon starts selling MP3s

I'm surprised that Amazon's foray into MP3 sales hasn't gotten more buzz. The New York Times has a smart take:

I covered Amazon.com for years, and one of the top questions that always lingered was, when would it start offering digital music? After all, Amazon already knows a lot about the CD-buying preferences of millions of people and would be a very logical digital music source.
Amazon.com

The answer is now clear: When it can simply be a music store, instead of a music service. Amazon today started selling MP3 files of 2 million songs from two of the four major labels — EMI and Universal Music -– as well as a bunch of independents.

Commenters on Slashdot are hailing this as a way to finally stick it to The Man, aka the folks that brought you DRM. Though weirdly, one commenter early on says "Of course, without DRM few of the major labels play with them." By my count, EMI + Universal = 50% of the major labels. But I was always bad at math.

Being the intrepid reporter I am, I rushed to try the service to tell you what you should think. I am pleased to report that, unless you work for Apple, you should be happier than Rush Limbaugh's pharmacist.

I downloaded Velvet Underground and Nico, one of the many albums that was eaten by the first of the Three Great Music Collection Wipeouts that have blighted my life. No, really, I can't say any more--I'll just start crying.

Anyway, Amazon was selling it, DRM free, for $7.97--a 20% discount off of the copy-protected version on Amazon. Downloading it to my Mac was simplicity itself, though there were a few slightly weird things. First weirdness: I use Safari for my Amazon purchases, even though Mozilla is my default browser. After it downloaded and installed, it made me restart Safari, then promptly opened up a window in Mozilla to complete the installation. This didn't exactly blight the process; it was just strange.

Second weirdness: in order to complete the installation, it makes you download a free song to test things. I am now the proud owner of "Energy" by Apples in Stereo, which is actually kind of catchy.

Then I proceeded to my Velvet Underground purchase. The service uses One-Click, which I hadn't turned on before; I had to tell it what credit card I wanted to use. Once I'd done that, however, the download was incredibly smooth. It not only downloaded the whole album, but instantly transferred it to my iTunes folder.

All in all, I expect that using it will be slightly clunkier than buying within iTunes, since it has to use Amazon's more complicated back end, and of course, you have to open up a web browser. It also doesn't yet have nearly as much information about the album as iTunes does, so you have to kind of know what you want.

On the other hand, it's awfully convenient if you're already shopping at Amazon. And 20% off DRM-free content from major labels is pretty sweet. I'd bet this forces Apple's prices down fairly rapidly. And it may well open up the other two major labels to DRM-free content.

Oh, and the music sounds fine; I can't tell the difference between the MP3 and the AAC version I was just streaming from someone else's computer.

By the way: we really do live in miraculous times.

Comments

Megan:

I have no horse in the race, but I prefer if I am going to have to have a magazine cover every few months claiming that either Jobs or Bezos on the cover, please leave Jobs. It is worth the extra $$$ not to have to have Bezos and his shiniest of heads staring at me from the next Fortune Magazine.

Posted by Brad | September 25, 2007 6:30 PM

Edit:

Megan:

I have no horse in the race, but I prefer if I am going to have to have a magazine cover every few months claiming that either Jobs or Bezos are hte kings of the new music industry on the cover, please leave Jobs. It is worth the extra $$$ not to have to have Bezos and his shiniest of heads staring at me from the next Fortune Magazine.

Posted by Brad | September 25, 2007 6:31 PM

My math's not so good either; how many kbps is "sounds fine", exactly?

Posted by McNamara | September 25, 2007 7:04 PM

But no DRM; hey, that's cool. emusic.com have the right idea on that, if only they had more records I actually like.

Posted by McNamara | September 25, 2007 7:08 PM

I'm a self-admitting Apple fanboy, but I'll take this thing over iTunes any day. Amazon's got exactly the right idea: you can't compete with the iPod. Any DRM system that doesn't work with the iPod is bound to fail. (I'm looking at you, Microsoft.)

So, ditch DRM. It's pointless anyway. Undersell iTunes and make it easy to transfer songs to your iPod. Or your Linux computer. Or anything that plays MP3s, which is damn near anything these days. It's the only way to get around the issue that Apple controls the most popular hardware player out there.

Basically, this is good news and bad news for Apple. It's good news in that it won't necessarily undercut their sales of iPods. It's bad news in that it certainly undercuts their iTunes Music Store. Granted, Apple makes much more money from sales of iPods than they do from music sales, but it does give them competition in a space that they've previously owned.

Amazon is going to force Apple to compete in the music downloads market for nearly the first time since they got into the business. The upside of all this is that it's going to force Apple to be much more consumer friendly, possibly lowering prices and stripping off DRM to compete.

The biggest fear is that if DRM-free music proliferates, the iPod could lose marketshare. Granted, the iPod is popular because it's the best player out there, not because of the Music Store, but it's still a risk nevertheless.

Posted by Jay Reding | September 25, 2007 8:15 PM

I've never owned a piece of Apple hardware. From the beginning, it's been clear that it was their way or the highway - and once you bought in, they owned you. DRM is no different. Buy an iPod, and if it breaks, you may lose the music you bought and paid for. (Apple Thy God is a Jealous God: now that people are unlocking their iPhones, the next iPhone firmware update will break the unlock and the phone, leaving you with a sad, shiny, expensive brick.)

I hear, though, that some "DRM-free" music is digitally fingerprinted so if it gets loose, they'll know who to sue.

Posted by Dr. Ellen | September 25, 2007 8:35 PM

The big question is whether Apple’s long-term operating structure was to continue to be a hardware profit center or a music service profit center. Daniel Gross’s recent Slate article about the price reduction of the iPhone is a potential hint that they were heading towards trying to make iTunes the profit center.

Another theory is that the price reduction was because Apple for whatever reason was unsure of the data technology Amazon was going to use, and dropped the price of the phone in order to capture as many iTune users as possible (in case Amazon used a different technology).

If Apple however is going to continue to use the hardware to make the most money, then this move actually could solidify Apple’s dominance in the mp3 player category. It is one more reason for people not to switch to another mp3 player.

Posted by Brad | September 25, 2007 8:36 PM

Dr. Ellen, if your iPod breaks, all your music is -- get ready -- still on your computer, in iTunes (Mac or PC). Just buy another iPod.

Further, only the music you've purchased from the iTunes Store has DRM -- all the music you ripped from your CDs is DRM-free. If you prefer the brown Zune (and who doesn't?), that music will play.

You can burn CDs with your purchased iTunes music. You can play them on multiple iPods. Yes, DRM kinda sucks, but given the hand Apple was given at the beginning, in which the major labels said, DRM or no music, they've made it fairly painless.

Now Megan is correct, DRM-free is the way to go, and if all the major labels figure that out, you'll move your purchased tracks to your pink Zune, or red iPod, without problems. Whether that helps or hurts Apple I have no idea right now.

One point not made yet: Apple has made digital music work by making their money on hardware, and developing a seamless experience to make that hardware pleasurable to use. Clearly users will pay for a seamless experience, and it's meant that Apple wasn't trying to live on 5 cents a song.

Now Amazon is in, and while they DO need to live on 5 cents a song, they can afford to underwrite this for a much longer period of time than just about any other vendor, since they make their money selling stuff on relatively thin margins -- it's what they know how to do. Microsoft never understood musice (e.g., a brown Zune), other MP3 players could never make it seamless (e.g., relying on Windows Media) and other song vendors, from Walmart to the labels, weren't willing to live on 5 cents a song long enough to break Apple.

So Amazon is the first real contender Apple has had in this business. Interesting to see where it goes.

Posted by Steve White | September 25, 2007 9:18 PM

with AAPL @ 153+, those long the shares better start paying real close attention.

DRM, whatever yourpersonal take is, is widely reviled. This is a great move by AMZN.

Watch if they don't partner with product like Helio Ocean in the near future.

See if GOOG+AMZN+Linux+AMD v. T+AAPL & MSFT+INTC doesn't come to a fenced octogon near you by 6/'008

Posted by Mark E Hoffer | September 25, 2007 10:44 PM

"you should be happier than Rush Limbaugh's pharmacist."

Cheap.

Posted by Jim Bass | September 25, 2007 11:02 PM

Second weirdness: in order to complete the installation, it makes you download a free song to test things.

I was wondering why Apples in Stereo were the #1 artist...

Posted by Jim Treacher | September 25, 2007 11:02 PM

No iPod, just want DRM free music. I though Amazon's service was just about the crappiest thing I've seen in years. It's like stepping into the way back machine except even the earliest music services didn't suck so bad. The quality of the music may be fine, but the service is otherwise an insult to anyone who has actually used computers.

(To be fair, Amazon has always had a really sucky interface, but couldn't they use this as an excuse to make it suck less?)

Posted by Joe | September 25, 2007 11:31 PM

Also, keep in mind that the Amazon music store is the latest in a long string of increasing desperate attempts by the record labels to find someone who can compete with Apple and thereby put the labels back in the driver's seat. I would not be at all surprised to see the terms of the Amazon store change once it becomes clear that this attempt is either succeeding or failing.

Posted by Jake | September 25, 2007 11:42 PM

McNamara wrote: My math's not so good either; how many kbps is "sounds fine", exactly?

Depends on your ears and your well-honed prejudices. You'll probably find that any MP3 above the margin range of 192-224kbps is indistinguishable from the CD in a blind test, unless it was encoded with a lousy codec. Below that range, unless using VBR (this isn't), artifacts start creeping in even with a good encoder.

Short answer, Amazon's 256kbps is sufficient to satisfy most people.

Posted by anony-mouse | September 26, 2007 12:46 AM

I've downloaded 5 songs from the service so far. 4 of them were LAME 3.97 VBRs in the 239-272 kbps range, which is about as good as it gets with mp3. The 5th one was CBR 256 from an unknown encoder, but it didn't sound bad. It'd be nice to see some consistency there.

If you know what you're looking for, the interface is actually very simple and clean. If you already have an Amazon account, all it takes to download a song is one click. (Literally. My Firefox already knows what to with mp3s, so that single click sent each song straight to my desktop.) I haven't tried the album thing yet, so it's possible that Joe is correct about that part being "an insult to anyone who has actually used computers," but I think he's mistaken when it comes to downloading individual songs.

Posted by Kyle Jelle | September 26, 2007 1:27 AM

ha the Apples rock. Per your previous thread I'd suggest you check out some more of their music.

Posted by bob | September 26, 2007 7:25 AM

"Anyway, Amazon was selling it, DRM free, for $7.97--a 20% discount off of the copy-protected version on Amazon."

I'm certain you meant iTunes at the end of the sentence.

Posted by apetrelli | September 26, 2007 10:08 AM

"Oh, and the music sounds fine; I can't tell the difference between the MP3 and the AAC version I was just streaming from someone else's computer."

Amazon is offering 256kbps compression. Isn't iTunes 192kbps? Amazon music sounds better to me.

Posted by apetrelli | September 26, 2007 10:10 AM

I don't recall, does iTunes have user reviews? Amazon does, although it's largely an empty field at this point.

Posted by apetrelli | September 26, 2007 10:12 AM

DRM-FREE is absolutely the way to go for the long term (why would I want DRM restricting what I can do with music that I have already paid for anyhow??) and 256kbps VBR is better than many of Amazon's DRM-FREE competitors in terms of sound quality.

For those who haven't get seen it, here is a direct link to Amazon's new service offering.

Posted by John | September 26, 2007 11:03 AM

"The biggest fear is that if DRM-free music proliferates, the iPod could lose marketshare. Granted, the iPod is popular because it's the best player out there, not because of the Music Store, but it's still a risk nevertheless."

From what I have heard it is more the opposite. The ipod isn't necessarily the best player, but has had a great advantage in the tight integration with the itunes store which was the easiest way to buy digital music. It will be interesting to see if Amazon selling mp3s will make much of an impact on that by offering a relatively easy to use alternative that owners of other mp3 players can use.

Posted by Allen | September 26, 2007 1:47 PM

There is nothing so far as I can tell, zero, nada preventing Steve Jobs or one of his minions from becoming an Amazon affiliate, integrating the Amazon store into ITunes, and making a penny or two off Amazon's efforts. Hardware has always been the majority of Apple's profit and the ITunes system has always been open to additional outlets being added. Apple just hasn't found other companies who could do better than they could in negotiating a deal for content. If Amazon has a superior method, Apple will gladly take the affiliate income and keep rolling out those IPods, their real profit center in the consumer music space.

Posted by TMLutas | September 26, 2007 3:03 PM

The ipods are the profit center, but part of the desirability of the ipod is the tight integration with itunes. I doubt Apple is that worried about the lost revenue from mp3s that Amazon is selling. But if Amazon makes it relatively painless to buy digital music and load it on a non-ipod player then that could possibly cut into their market share of ipods. Which is probably more worrying to them.

Posted by Allen | September 26, 2007 3:20 PM

Thanks for the heads-up, Megan. I am now the happy owner of many more MP3s. :)

Posted by Dan | September 26, 2007 8:22 PM

I tried Amazon mp3 downloading as soon as I heard about it. I found the process to be very easy. Now if they can flesh out their online catalogue, maybe even get some new releases, I can look forward to buying fewer CDs. I would like to buy all my music online.

Posted by Barry | September 27, 2007 4:02 AM

"Installation"? Why would I need an "installation" just to download a generic mp3 file?

I can't use this thing until I find out why it needs to install yet more bloatware onto my computer.

Posted by Artd0dger | September 27, 2007 11:34 AM