Amazon Billboard, a DRM free online music store
Amazon may have pioneered the business-to-consumer e-commerce, but they are jumping in to the music industry train awfully late. According to the source, Amazon has teamed up with Universal to provide DRM-free music sales. This move might shift the whole industry more towards DRM-free content, as Universal is current number one label on the market. The source however indicates that the market leader Apple has similar plans with iTunes
Even if Amazon does manage to launch its unprotected music store with Universal’s blessing, it will still have to fight to keep up with Apple. Apple has begun contract renegotiations with various major record labels that will extend into the summer, and industry execs told Reuters that Apple now has the upper hand in pressuring them to go DRM-free due to the company’s position in the market. While the labels may keep a strict poker face to the public on the topic of DRM, in private, an industry source hinted that following EMI into DRM-free waters is “only a matter of time.”
Souce: Ars Technica
