Amazon MP3 goes international in 2008

Posted on 28 Jan 2008 at 08:49

Amazon has announced that will begin the international expansion of its music downloads service later this year.

But the ecommerce giant declined to say which countries would have access to its catalogue of three million plus tracks, nor would it provide any precise timetable.

"We have received thousands of emails from Amazon customers around the world asking us when we will make Amazon MP3 available outside of the US They can't wait to choose from the biggest selection of high-quality, low-priced DRM-free MP3 music downloads which play on virtually any music device they own today or will own in the future," said Bill Carr, Amazon's vice president of Digital Music. "We are excited to tell those customers today that Amazon MP3 is going international this year."

As Carr said, Amazon is the unique position of being able to sell DRM-free content from all four of the major record companies as well as many thousands of independents. The majors appear to be betting on a DRM-free Amazon as the best way of weakening iTunes' dominance of the downloads market, since of the four only EMI has deigned to provide Apple with a licence to sell unrestricted tracks.

Amazon has also embraced variable pricing, something that the majors have so far failed to persuade Apple to accept, though this means prices can be both cheaper and more expensive than elsewhere. Amazon tracks are also encoded in the universally supported MP3 format, while Apple has opted for the less widely used but technically superior AAC standard.

Author: Simon Aughton

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