The major online retailer Amazon has finally announced its upcoming music store, which will free of any DRM infestation, confirming rumours that have been going around about the store. According to Amazon, the store will offer a music library consisting of millions of songs from over 12,000 record labels, including the major record label EMI. The music format will be MP3-only, which is compatible with the vast majority of MP3 players on the market, including the iPod and even Microsoft's Zune. EMI has already empasized that its deal with iTunes to offer DRM-free music was not exclusive and that it is looking into partnering with other online music stores also.
Unfortunately, as the three other major labels refuse to offer their music without the infecting its music, no music from these three labels will be available on Amazon, at least yet. However, on the other hand, it is great to see Amazon choosing provide its customers with freedom and the ability to use any MP3 player on the market without worrying about content restrictions. It is unclear at this time what bitrate Amazon's music library will be encoded at.
Interestingly, early 2006, Amazon announced that they were going to launch a music store and a proprietary series of players, where its music would be DRM crippled to only play on its players. However, at least this never took off and with Amazon now set to launch a DRM-free store, with Apple to start offering DRM free tracks from EMI also, hopefully this will put off the launching of any other music store using another proprietary DRM system.
