Amazon MP3 store to go global in 2008

Online heavyweight Amazon.com, Inc. announced Sunday hat it will make its online Amazon MP3 store internationally available later this year, giving a significant boost to its continuous efforts to threaten Apple's iTunes.

Announcing their plans in a press release yesterday, the online retail giant Amazon said it will sell DRM-free music worldwide through the Amazon MP3 store beginning later this year.

"We have received thousands of e-mails from Amazon customers around the world asking us when we will make Amazon MP3 available outside of the U.S. They can't wait to choose from the biggest selection of high-quality, low-priced DRM-free MP3 music downloads which play on virtually any music device they own today or will own in the future," said Bill Carr, Vice President of Digital Music at Amazon.com. "We are excited to tell those customers today that Amazon MP3 is going international this year."

Amazon MP3 is the Internet retailer’s digital music download store that features songs without digital rights management (DRM) software. Launched in September 2007, the MP3 store provides DRM-free downloads of over 3.3 million songs from 180,000 artists and 20,000 labels.

Amazon, which currently offers Earth's Biggest Selection, said Amazon MP3 has the only digital music catalogue that offers DRM-free tracks from all four major music labels as well as thousands of independent labels.

Early this month, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Sony's music venture with Bertelsmann AG, announced that it will start selling some of its music without digital rights management (DRM) through Amazon.com's digital music store.

Before this, the New York-based recorded music company, Warner Music Group decided to retail its music without Digital Rights Management on Amazon.com Inc.’s digital music store Amazon MP3.

In August, 2007, Universal Music Group had announced its plans to make many of its songs available without copy protection. Owned by French media giant Vivendi, Universal Music Group or UMG said it will sell DRM-free (without digital rights management) digital tracks as a nationwide test to assess the market.

British music giant EMI Music is the other recording label that is selling much of its music without anti-copying software. On April, 2, the London-based music label had announced that it would start selling unprotected content.

The big four music labels’ decision to retail DRM-free music outside of iTunes may pose challenge to Apple Inc., which currently controls major part of the recording industry.

With a catalog of more than three million DRM-free music downloads in MP3 format, the internet mogul Amazon apparently has become an ally and a potential rival to Apple’s iTunes Store that currently contains more than 6 million songs.