They could just zip the files on the fly.

To buy some music, enter your regular billing address for your credit card, choose TX as your state 78503 as your Zip code, and bingo your order is processed… Dont know if this is a bug that will be ironed out later but i did buy some Jimmy Buffet music this way.. I’m in Mexico BTW…

Since various other sources indicate at least some are watermarked, I wouldn’t call them DRM free. They’re just using a passive form of DRM instead of an active one.

I’d prefer not to have to run special software, but at least I’d be getting the same deal as win/osx users.

The fact is, what Amazon is offering in late 2007 should have been available almost a decade ago when the industry first saw Napster skyrocket in popularity.

Regardless, I can’t say I dislike witnessing the slow death of DRM by way of good old fashioned market pressure.

I don’t think you’ll see that any time remotely soon. Amazon has its own reputation to maintain, and they rely on labels to provide them with “quality” music. A large conglomerate like that doesn’t really have time to pick and choose from an endless stream of indie bands. It would be nice to see them open up to some lesser known labels, though.

What we need next is a good old fashioned price war until the price drops to AllOfMp3 levels. Somewhere around there is a price point that can compete with free.

Why pick-and-choose at all? It’s not like the MP3′s are competing for physical shelf-space.

More digital content does take up more shelf space in terms of storage and bandwidth. That stuff isn’t cheap when you’ve got millions of users.

Added to that, there are the logistical challenges of securing rights to sell, dealing (very likely) with agents for said bands, making sure bands get paid, making sure the posted music meets some standard of quality (highly subjective, of course), developing software to support a scalable selling system anyone can sign up for… I could go on. I’d wager all that is probably more of an expense than storage/bandwidth, and that you might as well consider that to be part of the virtual “shelf space.”

The only reasons iTunes’ closest competitor, eMusic, is such a distant second (as far as my market knowledge goes) is:

1. Barrier to entry in the form of committing to a subscription.

2. Subscription uses monthly credits that don’t roll over.

3. Lackluster label support (and for some reason, even the indie catalog is never up to date).

It looks like Amazon’s offering addresses each of these. Add the fact that almost no one who buys anything at all online even needs to sign up, and their position starts to look pretty good.

I’m excited. Very excited.

Imagine if you could choose ringtone for only 10 cents more!!

“… If you wish to purchase an entire album, you are required to use the Amazon MP3 Downloader available for Windows XP or Vista and Mac OS X 10.4 or higher. …”

I think we can all take pretty good guesses as to why they intentionally make it more expensive for non-Windows/Mac users to by albums. If you can buy the album for around $9, you pay more in the sum of the individual songs that comprise the album.

DRM-free gooooood, pandering to Microsoft and Apple baaaaaaad.

I can see your points — the infrastructure certainly isn’t free — but I still think the profits from one or two successful indie artists would more than cover the costs for the rest.

Then again, I tend to see the internet as fundamentally egalitarian in nature, and I always hope corporations will embrace that when they have the opportunity.

Quality-control is still an issue (as you noted), but in my mind it’s not an insurmountable one.

It did say it just a couple of clicks in. It is ‘up front’ but granted it’s rather small.

*sigh* Living somewhere other than the United States really bites sometimes. I WANT to buy DRM-free music… I REALLY DO!

-g (from Canada)

“All Sales Final; Downloading and Risk of Loss; Availability of Digital Content. All sales of Digital Content are final. We do not accept returns of Digital Content. Once you have purchased Digital Content, we encourage you to download it promptly and to make back-up copies of it…. You bear all risk of loss after purchase.”

Keep the cakebox handy.

The files are well tagged including composer and copyright information. There is also an Amazon Song ID # included in the comments tag.

Brilliant! – now downloading in the UK :)

Why would I want to?