So I read the article 3 down, 1 to go: Warner Music Group drops DRM last night and decided to check it out. I have been really happy with the ease of ordering music from Apple's iTunes in the past, they really pioneered selling music on the web, and have made purchasing music and transferring it to my iPod dead simple.

What compelled me to check out Amazon's MP3 service?

The main reason I was interested in it is that music purchased from Amazon is DRM-Free. For those that don't know, DRM means Digital Rights Management, which "is an umbrella term that refers to access control technologies used by publishers and copyright holders to limit usage of digital media or devices." - wikipedia. Since the music I purchase is DRM free it means I can easily copy it to any device I own, including my laptop, my iPod, my new iPhone, or my desktop without any limitations, which is nice because I have so many devices.

The real significance of the announcement mentioned in the article is that "EMI, Universal, and Warner now offer their catalogues in DRM-free digital formats," on Amazon.com, which constitutes 3 of the major music labels to come to such an agreement.

The thing that bothers me so much about the DRM that Apple/iTunes uses is that it is way to restrictive, and way to difficult to backup. So far I have purchased 3 movies, and 1 season pass for a TV show, and of all those videos that I have purchased I can't get them on all the devices that I want and own because I downloaded them to different computers. If I purchased them, shouldn't I have the freedom to put them on any device that I choose? This also pisses me off about my DVDs...I have about 100 DVDs, but I can't easily transfer them to my computer, iPod, or iPhone without jumping through a bunch of hoops.

Well, enough on the DRM-Free aspect of Amazon's service, there are some other benefits too, such as price. So far I have purchased two albums from Amazon, and both were only $8.99, which is cheaper than iTunes standard $9.99 per album for music.

There is also an added benefit of increased quality of the music purchased form Amazon over iTunes. The majority of music purchased through iTunes has a bit rate of 128kbps, where as Amazon's music is all 320kbps (Correction, it is 256kbps or higher). For those that don't know...higher bit rate means higher quality. From what I am told the human ear can't notice any sound quality difference at a bit rate over 192kbps, but it can distinguish the difference for anything less than that. So Amazon's music should have a noticeable quality upgrade over Apple's.

So to sum everything up, Amazon's mp3 store is better than iTunes because:

• It is DRM free
• It is cheaper than iTunes
• It is better quality

The only time I can see going back to purchase any music from iTunes is if Amazon doesn't sell it. Try it out if you are the type that buys music online. I don't think you will be disappointed.

Labels: iPod