14 DAY TRIAL // Amazon prepares a major hit for the DRM companies because the firm plans to launch a DRM-free music shop to sell unprotected MP3s. It seems like Amazon wants to release the store in the upcoming months and will allow the download of millions of songs without any limitation. According to Engadget, Amazon will sell music only in the MP3 format, the only extension that can be used without any DRM limitation. Because the store will allow the download of the music but Amazon will not guarantee for the distribution of the songs, it is expected to encounter several reactions from the DRM companies that want to offer protected content.
However, there's not much to do if Amazon signs an agreement with the owners of the songs because it is able to distribute the content in any format as long as it pays the specified amount of money to them. As you might know, the most popular DRM protected format is WMA, an extension also used by the Sunnyvale company Yahoo to sell music content. However, Apple's iTunes seems to be the most affected product because its online shop is currently selling millions of DRM-protected songs.
Maybe you're asking yourself if it's worth creating a DRM-free MP3 music store that will charge the customers only once but the distribution of the songs is not protected. Well, in the recent period the online music stores were strongly affected by a major drop in sales so they are somehow forced to sell their content at any price. Of course, Amazon will probably manage to lure all the online music transactions because most of the users will be attracted to buy a song that will allow them to use it without any limitation instead of acquiring an album and listen it for a certain period of time.