The Amazon MP3 Store: Watch Out Apple!
With Apple’s stock at record highs and critics showering the iPhone and recent iPod updates with praise, it almost seems as if nothing can go wrong for the company. Almost. On September 26, Amazon announced the immediate release of their MP3 download store, a clear competitor with Apple’s iTunes Store. But here’s the catch: Amazon’s store has no DRM whatsoever. That means you can play the tracks you download just about anywhere: Mac or PC, iTunes or Windows Media Player, iPod, Zen, or (god forbid) Zune. The Amazon store also has the upper hand on pricing: most songs are 99 cents, the same as iTunes, but they offer the top 100 tracks for a reduced price of 89 cents each. At a glance, it appears that the Amazon store trumps the iTS in just about every aspect. So let’s take a closer look at how Amazon’s new MP3 download store stacks up against the iTS.
The Interface
The Amazon MP3 store’s interface closely resembles that of the rest of the site. Featured content appears right in the middle of the page, with a search bar on the top and genres and pricing options on a sidebar on the left. While Amazon’s store does not have the same unified visual appeal as the iTS, it does have a few nice visual goodies: when scrolling through the featured albums section, the site uses a fun motion blur effect to simulate flipping quickly through the records. Of course this doesn’t compare to iTunes’ Cover Flow feature, but it makes the browser-based shopping experience more enjoyable.
The Selection
The main area where music shoppers may find fault is in Amazon’s selection. The store currently offers 2 million tracks available for download, compared to 6 million on the iTunes Store. However, there is one notable exception where the Amazon store triumphs in terms of selection: Radiohead, a popular (and my personal favorite) band, has been included in their catalog. Radiohead, who have long abstained from selling their songs digitally through iTunes, have made them available through Amazon, a gesture that is sure to please many fans. However, beyond that detail the iTS triumphs. While Amazon’s store includes music from “Big Four” labels EMI and Universal (as well as 12,000 other labels), it lacks other major players like Sony BMG and Warner, whose catalogs are offered on iTunes. So while it seems counterintuitive, more obscure artists have equal presence on Amazon and iTunes, but iTunes has dominance when it comes to more mainstream popular musicians. This isn’t to say, of course, that Amazon’s catalog won’t expand. It is only a matter of time before the Amazon store grows to be comparable in size to iTunes.
Pricing
Here is where Amazon is the big winner. The normal price of their songs – 99 cents – matches that of the standard iTunes pricing, but Amazon also offers the top 100 tracks at a discounted 89 cents apiece. It is also worth noting that all of Amazon’s downloads are free of DRM, but the modest selection of songs that are offered DRM-free through iTunes sell for $1.29. So a song on Amazon is up to 40 cents less than a song on iTunes.
Amazon vs. iTunes
Also, while iTunes consistently offers full albums for $10 or more, Amazon’s prices rarely pass the $10 mark, and many are as low as $5. Although the price difference between Amazon and iTunes is often not dramatic, Amazon’s discounts definitely give it the upper hand.
The Downloading Experience
iTunes has the advantage of being a unified store and music manager, meaning you can purchase a song, download it, and listen to it, all without switching between applications. Amazon’s store doesn’t have this luxury, instead requiring you to download and install a lightweight “download manager” app (both Mac and PC compatible). But buying a song through the Amazon store is still a fairly simple process. If you already have an account on Amazon, you don’t have to do a thing to configure the store; it will automatically use the credit card information you have provided in the past. All you need to do is click the Buy Now link next to any song or album, and the download manager will automatically pop open. During my testing, the songs downloaded at a very satisfying rate. And the download manager can automatically load the songs into your iTunes library. While iTunes wins for simplicity of downloading, Amazon comes about as close as any online store can.
The Songs
Amazon’s songs come encoded at 256 kbps (VBR), which is high enough quality to please all but the most hardcore audiophiles. They also come loaded with high-resolution album artwork very comparable to what iTunes provides. And finally, and most importantly, Amazon’s tracks are 100% DRM free. I’ve been bringing this up throughout the course of the article, so I feel some explanation is required. DRM, which stands for “digital rights management”, is a system that distributors such as iTunes use to discourage piracy of the content they distribute. While this is a commendable motive, the way they go about doing it often cripples what can and cannot be done with the music. For example, when you buy a DRM-encoded song on iTunes, you can only put it on iPods (no other MP3 players allowed), and store it on a limited number of computers. There is also a cap on the number of times you can burn playlists with DRM-encoded songs onto CDs. In the past, most major record labels have been strong proponents of DRM, but recently it has been meeting strong criticism. In May, Apple began offering tracks from the major label EMI without DRM, but at the increased price of $1.29 per song. Amazon’s store, which offers many DRM-free big-label tracks at reasonable prices, is a major step forward in the downfall of DRM.
Final Thoughts
At this point in time, the only thing that is holding Amazon store back from being an iTunes killer is the selection and the lack of integration with a music player. iTunes has three times as many tracks, and it is impossible to argue that it could suffer serious losses as a result of Amazon’s new store, for the simple reason that there are so many artists not yet available through Amazon. iTunes is also REALLY convenient. It’s right there in your music player and you don’t have to go to a website to get more music.
But this is not the only reason that Amazon’s store poses little threat to Apple. Currently, Apple only encodes its tracks with DRM because of its contractual obligations with the labels whose music it distributes. In other words, DRM isn’t Apple’s idea, and in fact Apple CEO Steve Jobs has publicly opposed the restrictive measures. So with the tide turning so thoroughly against DRM, it seems very likely that it will soon become a thing of the past. And when it does, the playing field will level greatly, with Apple being able to offer the same quality and lack of restriction as the new Amazon store currently has. While Amazon’s new music store is a great innovation today, it is an even bigger step in providing an overall improvement in the quality of digital music downloads. If you’re a music lover, you should be very happy right about now.
[...] You can read the rest of this blog post by going to the original source, here [...]
[...] unknown wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptiTunes has the advantage of being a unified store and music manager, meaning you can purchase a song, download it, and listen to it, all without switching between applications. Amazon’s store doesn’t have this luxury, instead requiring … [...]
A few notable points I’d like to point out… the first is pricing. While there is a discount at 89 cents for songs many songs are also at 99 cents and I’ve found a few that are at 1.49. This bothers me for the simple reason there may be price increases in the future. It appears that Amazon doesn’t control the prices of their songs but rather the music cartel does. Now if Amazon Mp3 store takes off and becomes a hit the cartels may decide to jack up the prices. I favor iTunes because we know what the price is per song and we know Apple is committed to keeping them at the same consistent price. So while Amazon may have a price “advantage” right now in the future this may not be the case.
You mentioned that the tracks are encoded in MP3 format at 256kbps while these are superior in quality to the standard 128kkbps in AAC format compared to a 256kbps AAC track the MP3 file is larger which is a poor case for a superior file. Not to mention that AAC is the successor to MP3 and AAC offers a better compression ratio and preserves more information when compared to an MP3 file at the same bit rate.
Finally the thing that kills it for me is the lack of integration into a player. I don’t want to be hassled with having to move the song from the download folder and open up iTunes to sync it to my iPod. Thats a hassle for me. Pain in my arse.
I’d like to also point out that while competition is good for the industry the only reason they are not selling other labels besides EMI at the iTS is because the cartel wants to spite Apple due to its huge influence in the distribution of content. A few months ago Universal said they would never offer their music without DRM but now thats what they are doing. Eventually Universal and the others will allow Apple to sell their music unprotected but that will take time. I personally don’t see the huge deal in wanting DRM free music unless you are sharing the music with more than 5 computers or wanting to switch from using an iPod to a different music player (I’ve never seen it happen but hey even a snowball might have a chance in H3LL)
Have to say it…Love Apple and iTunes, but I will be buying all and everything I can at the Amazon store due to the lack of DRM…
Slevin, those are all excellent points. However, one thing you may have missed is that the Amazon download manager can automatically add your downloaded songs to iTunes. It’s barely a hassle compared to buying things directly through iTunes, and it’s much easier than, say, ripping a CD.
Also, while your point about the compression rates is completely valid, there are two sides to the argument: some people say that an AAC is always better than an MP3, but I have also heard people say that a high-quality MP3 can be superior to a low-quality AAC. For example, this article compares the quality of a 128 kbps AAC to a 160 kbps MP3. But you’re right about the fact that in general, the AAC format is superior to MP3.
Daniel: You talk about how wonderful it is that Amazon music has no DRM, but you don’t say WORD ONE about the use of digital watermarking by Amazon.
Paul: You’re right, I didn’t mention the digital watermarking that Amazon uses, but that’s because it’s nothing at all like the DRM that Apple uses. A quote from an Amazon representative on Wired.com says: “Amazon does not apply watermarks. Files are generally provided to us from the labels and some labels use watermarks to identify the retailer who sold the tracks (there is no information on the tracks that identifies the customer).” So, as far as I can tell, the watermarks are really just product branding; they don’t restrict what you can do with the files and they don’t “phone home” or anything like that.
One other difference between the Amazon store and iTunes that people seem to be glossing over is that there are many songs in the Amazon store that are available only as part of an album. In contrast, most songs that aren’t extremely long are available in iTunes as individual tracks. Depending on your buying habits, this could tilt the economics of the situation back in iTunes’ favor. Also, when you buy a bunch of individual tracks in one session at the iTunes store it’s treated as one big transaction for credit card purposes, whereas on the Amazon store each track is an individual purchase. It’s not a big deal, but it does complicate keeping track of one’s finances.
Overall, though, the Amazon MP3 store is a welcome addition as it works well, by and large, and, unlike most other such services, supports a wide range of platforms and players. It’ll provide competition, not just for iTunes, but pretty much for everyone else selling music downloads.
Daniel: I hear what you’re saying about existing watermarking without unique identifiers, but Sony/BMG, Warner Music Group, and the Universal Music Group are unlikely to give up DRM entirely without unique identifier watermarking. How long do you think Amazon will resist, especially when they are so keen to hide behind the excuse that “the record labels are doing the watermarking.” Let’s hope that the outrage over the Sony rootkits will keep the labels away from surreptitious privacy violations.
Ah, I knew someone would pull out that load of nonsense about AAC being “superior” to MP3. Nonsense.
Let me dissect your argument.
“compared to a 256kbps AAC track the MP3 file is larger”
BZZT. A file encoded at 256k will be approximately the same size whether it is AAC, MP3, WMA or Ogg Vorbis. A VBR-encoded file (and Amazon’s files are VBR-encoded) might be larger than a 256k file, but it might just as easily be SMALLER.
“Not to mention that AAC is the successor to MP3″
Nonsense. That’s purely conjecture. The digital audio landscape is littered with the corpses of formats which were the ’successors’ to MP3. AAC is popular, but that’s ONLY because of the iPod. If the iPod fell from favour tomorrow nobody would miss it.
“AAC offers a better compression ratio and preserves more information when compared to an MP3 file at the same bit rate.”
This may be true ON PAPER but in real world experience, a 256k MP3 is indistinguishable from a 256k AAC file.
I have no problem with people supporting AAC. It’s a decent format, and I use it for audiobooks (mostly because it’s the only way to make iTunes see the files as books and not as generic audio tracks) as well as for music.
As far as pricing goes, some individual tracks MAY indeed be more than $1.29 (iTunes+ pricing) BUT the majority are .99 or less. The labels will always have some say in the final price of the music you buy unless you’re buying used CDs.
I bought the Decemberists’ new e.p. for $2.77 on Amazon the day it came out (before it showed up in the iTunes store, btw). It’s encoded in HQ VBR. I can buy it from Apple now for $3.49 in 128k AAC. Now you tell me…which is the better deal?
“Finally the thing that kills it for me is the lack of integration into a player.”
Funny, the Amazon downloader added the tracks right to iTunes when I used it. I’ve heard this complaint before, and I can only assume it’s being made by people who haven’t actually USED the service. Sure, it’s not built into iTunes, but I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing.
“I personally don’t see the huge deal in wanting DRM free music”
Okay, so you don’t mind DRM? You don’t mind somebody else having the ability to prevent you from using your purchased music how you want? With MP3s I can burn as many CDs as I want, give them to friends, put the MP3s on as many computers as I want, I can load them onto every iPod I see, email them to a friend or (not that I would) upload them to a website for people to download. But with the iTunes store, Apple’s calling the shots. Call me crazy, but that just plain sucks. It also locks you into NEEDING an iPod if you want to take your music with you. I’m not so crazy about that, either. If people are forced to buy iPods to keep their music portable, how does that make Apple any different from Microsoft?
I’m not buying any more music from either service, because I honestly prefer CDs, but if I were going to buy more music, it’d be from Amazon.
Oh, and Daniel? Amazon’s store has only been open for a week. The iTunes store has what, three or four years? I’m quite certain the number of tracks available on Amazon will go up quickly.
The real “coup” will be if they manage to score the right to distribute the Beatles catalogue before Apple (AND if they get exclusive rights to it).
Competition is good!
@Paul Johnson
What’s the problem with watermarking? As long as the music plays wherever, whenever I want, I don’t care.
That’s DRM free. It’s like the serial number on your computer. They know that you bought that item.
Competition is always good
I personally don’t care much for Radiohead, but if they only want their music distributed as a whole, more power to them. Alas…….I’ve got to admit that this Radiohead Itunes ban almost smells like the Metallica/Napster debacle.
It’s cheaper yet better quality. Definite winner if they have a plugin for iTunes or something.
I too am in the camp that the Monopoly may finally be over with distributing digital content and that I can’t think of a company more suited to offer up some competition than Amazon.
[...] Joe Wikert wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerpt [...]
[...] Joe Wikert wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerpt [...]
Your wrong about the 256vbr mp3 format being better than 128 AAC. The keyword is VBR (variable bit rate). 256 is the maximum encoding rate. You don’t want to know the minimum.
But leave that behind and do yourself a favour. Download the same song from both sites and you will see for yourself. Or should I say hear for yourself. I-tunes sounds better.
Also the license fee for the mp3 format is about 1/5 the price of AAC. Your getting cheap stuff. Especially since they made it VBR. They probably figured that everyone would be fooled into thinking it is better and apparently it is working. Mp3 format is old and outdated. Look at how many new and improved formats have emerged since mp3. Ask your self a question. How long will it be before the device you like no longer plays Mp3’s. The future doesn’t look bright.
“Your wrong about the 256vbr mp3 format being better than 128 AAC. The keyword is VBR (variable bit rate). 256 is the maximum encoding rate. You don’t want to know the minimum.”
You apparently know very little about how VBR encoding works. Of course the automatic badmouthing of anything that isn’t Apple takes precedence over reality with some folks.
“Mp3 format is old and outdated. Look at how many new and improved formats have emerged since mp3.”
Yes, and look at how many of them have actually become as ubiquitous as MP3. Then ask yourself the question: how many players support MP3? 99.99999% of them. (That 0.00001% being Sony’s ATRAC-only Digital Walkman, which by now actually DOES support MP3). Why do you think that’s going to change? In twenty or thirty years, MAYBE, but not right now, and certainly not on your say-so.
As I said, the digital landscape is littered with the ruined corpses of various formats which have been devised to challenge MP3. Even if you took the two most popular alternative “superior” formats’ market share combined you’d not begin to approach the popularity and mind share of the MP3. VQF. ATRAC. Even the MP3+ and MP3Pro extensions to the format couldn’t compete!
And you need to learn there’s a lot more to superiority than tech specs. Betamax was in every way superior to VHS, but the inferior VHS won out. So it wasn’t quite so inferior, was it?
[...] Graham: [...]
Zvuk je z?ejm? z kina, perfekt (viz screen). Vyšlo toho více, tak možná o?ekávejte upgrade fiberglass mesh Vyšlo toho více kt (viz screen). tak možná o?ekávejteuimvg