Amazon.com on Wednesday announced plans to launch a digital music store later this year that will sell audio in MP3 content, without any Digital Rights Management (DRM) encumbrances. Amazon.com said that every song and album in its new store will be in MP3 format.
The announcement follows a similar move announced by Apple and EMI in April — this month, EMI’s music catalog will appear on the iTunes Music Store free of DRM. So it’s little surprise that the first major commercial partner Amazon.com has announced is also EMI, although the company said that more than 12,000 other labels will also participate.
Because Amazon.com is shedding DRM technology and adopting the ubiquitous MP3 standard, the music purchased from its download store will play on just about any digital music player, including Apple’s iPod, and will be useable with just about any computer. The songs will also be able to be burned to CD.