First Impressions: Amazon MP3 Beta
First it was video with Amazon Unbox, now the online retailer giant is venturing into digital music sales with Amazon MP3. Here’s the real kicker - all songs are DRM-free, encoded at 256 kilobits per second and priced from 89 cents to 99 cents each, with most albums costing $8.99. In comparison this is considerably better than Apple’s iTunes Store offerings which are plagued with DRM (there are some DRM-free tracks but they go for $1.29) and low bit rates.
Unlike the iTunes Store’s DRM-free tracks that only come from EMI, Amazon MP3 has secured 2 million DRM-free songs by more than 180,000 artists from over 20,000 major and independent labels; nothing short of impressive. As for how you go about downloading the songs from Amazon MP3, there is a downloader application to facilitate the process. You download a .amz file from the website which is used by the downloader application to fetch the real MP3s for you. The real question is if this downloader application will be offered on alternative platforms, like say Linux. However, after some prodding I discovered that the downloader is not absolutely necessary and songs maybe downloaded without it, as noted at the bottom of this screenshot.
The downloader application makes an "Amazon MP3" folder within your Music folder and creates the appropriate directory structure based on artist and album name. Overall, the download experience was quite pleasant and the 7MB/3:29 song I purchased was downloaded in roughly 5 seconds over my “6 megabit” connection.
As for integration with iTunes, it is obviously going to require a bit more effort and is not as streamlined a process as is purchasing songs with the iTunes Store. However, I discovered that Amazon puts a comment within the ID3 tag metadata container for the song. As such, it is easy to make a Smart Playlist in iTunes that will automatically aggregate your Amazon MP3 purchased songs in there - sort of like the standard “Purchased” playlist.
By default, the Amazon MP3 Downloader automatically imports your newly purchased tracks into iTunes, so there isn’t too much hassle on the user’s part after setting everything up.
Thoughts
Amazon MP3 is kicking ass and taking names, short and simple. iTunes Store afficionados won’t like the extra hassle of setting up Amazon MP3 but I believe the DRM-free benefits, lower cost and higher quality songs will lure many over. For me, the lower price was incentive enough to switch over - and I’m a huge iTunes Store user, having spent close to $1,000 on songs over the last two years. Competition is always great for the market so hopefully this will spur Apple to do something of epic proportions.
Assuming you already pay for your music (long shot, I know), will you start using Amazon MP3 regularly? Give it a whirl and let me know what you think.
That sounds pretty awesome. I just haven’t gotten new music in a really long time because I’m a) trying not to download and b) still not willing to pay $.99 for each song. I can’t believe you’ve spent that much on music! That’s a LOT of money for music!
I’ll have to look into Amazon’s service since $.89 is a tiny bit better, but for now I’ve taken to just streaming internet radio.
What about LegalSounds (http://www.legalsounds.com/)? Their encoding isn’t as high, but you can’t beat 9¢/song!
@”na” - that brings me scary memories of AllofMP3 - we all remembered what happened there right?
Great review, Paul! I used it today for the first time and find it very easy to use. Plus, you’ve gotta love that it’s DRM-Free. I’ve used E-music for independent music, but will definitely consider Amazon for major labels. BTW, have you been able to determine which labels are signed-up? From what I can see, only EMI and Universal are there.
I only just started using iTunes, and I gotta say I love it. Amazon Mp3 seems nice enough, but unless they start selling gift cards in all major retailers in Canada like iTunes, I don’t see me using the service. I don’t have a credit card. :p
Definitely looks interesting, but let’s see if Amazon will even launch it outside of thet US :-( If they do (and hopefully also make it available to people living in Austria), I’d love to see some international stuff there. Currently iTunes is driving me nuts with their per-country lockdown since I’d sometimes really enjoy hearing some music from other countries like Japan.
Definitely considering switching. Also avid iTunes store user here, but for all the same reasons as you, I’ll be setting this up when I get home!
Looks really interesting! I just wish there weren’t these international restrictions, there aren’t any on CDs. I’m getting ready for a rip-off price on Amazon UK for this service. Sigh.
I’m with Horst on this one- Not having access to the majority of Dave Matthews tracks in the UK is really tedious. I think iTunes has at last a serious contender. Any word of possible launches of AmazonMP3 outside the US?
It’s just so strange that when it comes to big media companies, the Internet seems to create more boundaries and barriers rather than break them down. When I’m home in Singapore, I can order stuff from Amazon.com and have it shipped internationally. Not going to be so with online music I guess.
I’m definitely going to check amazonmp3 for music before I turn to iTunes from now on. This is great, and a nice surprise given how terrible the Unbox video store experience is.
Still too expensive, and lack of giftcards means people without credit cards will still not be able to use it.
When old tunes cost 5-6 times as much as the bargain bin prices for a whole album, its still worth buying the CD if you want to pay for music.
I set up a Smart Playlist because of your post, and it worked great with the first tracks I bought - KT Tunstall. But I bought a couple of songs from Vienna Teng, and they don’t contain Amazom.com in the comments field. Only a 9 digit number, like 200986127.
Oh, well. So much for the magic playlist! :-)
I’ve been looking for the MUNICH soundtrack for a while. I couldn’t find a torrent of it, refused to pay for locked 128 AAC on iTMS, so I picked it up as soon as I read about this service on engadget this morning. Really easy, relatively cheap, playing on my two computers + my iPod, sound quality is excellent, probably what I would have ripped the CD at anyways. There’s no authorizing or de-authorizing bullshit to mess with… the first music I’ve (legally) downloaded in a long time, and will probably use again.
I’d be interested to know if the text/numbers in the comments section is the only “watermark” or whatever in the files. Can anyone shed any light on this?
Agreed. I, too, have been a pretty diehard iTunes user having purchased many a song through the service, but the high-quality encoding, DRM-free and impressive catalog might cause a shift in the winds…
@Tanner: (via daringfireball.net)
Bill Carr, Amazon’s vice president for digital music, said some record labels add a digital watermark to MP3 files that indicate what company sold the song, and Amazon adds its own name and the item number of the song, for customer service purposes. He added that no details about the buyer or the transaction are added to the downloaded music file.
Slightly better than Apple’s DRM-free iTunes Plus files contain your name and iTunes user account ID, (which is generally an email address).
Nice write-up. I tried using E-music and hated it, and have stuck with iTunes. I definitely think I’ll be trying out Amazon.
Has anyone else noticed new albums coming out seem to be priced at $9.99 the week they came out? I bought the new Foo Fighters CD from Best buy yesterday because it was the same price as iTunes. Other new CDs were going for $9.99 as well. Same at Target.
How do you spend that much money on music? I know that I will definitely switch to Amazon for music. All of the drm crap is really annoying me.
Just read that they don’t verify your address with your credit card, meaning you can enter a fake state and postal code if you don’t live in the US. This means the songs are available for international purchase! Going to try it out later.
Still no technical itch or dom and roland.
Hard to beat the iTunes Music Store interface. Steve Jobs constantly says it and it is backed up by Apple’s products, “Apple is a software company.” I don’t spend much on music so it isn’t a huge gain for me to switch.
Man, this is almost totally awesome. The only problem for me: no safety net. I can only download the files once, and then I’m responsible for backups. If I buy the physical album I get the security of having an original fidelity backup AND the bonus of having the case + booklet and all that Jazz.
If they allowed you to redownload your files, I would use this exclusively.
Well, I’d like to use it, but I’m outside of the US. ;)
Andreas
I’ve spent probably $300 in the last couple years for music, because I think it’s fair. I appreciate that I can download only the tracks I like. But I always hated DRM (even though I still downloaded music). So it’s great that we now have DRM-free music. Music pirates now have much less of a reason to be pirates.
Any word as to what the bitrate is on the encoded tracks and what encoder they are using? I know I’m being geeky, but if I’m going to pay for music I want to know what quality of a product I’m getting.
as for bitrate “all songs are encoded at 256 kilobits per second”
Thanks Paul; couldn’t find that on their site earlier.
It was on their press release, but you’re right, it’s hard to find otherwise.
I’ll probably give this a whirl. I don’t buy much music (mostly because of DRM). When I buy something, I want to use it how I want (within the law..)
Well, I’d like to use it, but I’m outside of the US. ;)
agree