it…out

Amazon has just launched a DRM-free MP3 music download store. This can be described only as a Good Thing.  I tried out the service last night and today and am impressed overall.

Pros

• Simple, easy interface.  Click on a song, it’s yours.
• More mainstream artists.  Amazon has both EMI and Universal — I’m told that’s 2 of the big 4 (I had no idea there were only 4).
• Good quality: 256kbps MP3 is good enough for me, and more importantly it’s…
• Portable.  Songs play on any app/OS/device.
• No taxation? Apparently no sales tax is charged for purchases, unlike iTunes purchases.
• Competitive pricing.  Single songs for as little as $0.89, and significant savings when buying albums.  They’re priced from $5.99 to $9.99 with top 100 songs and albums usually priced at $0.89 and $8.99 respectively.

Cons

• To reap the savings of downloading whole albums, you need to use Amazon’s downloader, which has no Linux support.  Yet. 
• No re-downloading.  I can download my emusic purchases as many times as I like, but purchases from Amazon are a one shot deal.

Look out, emusic
I’ve been a big fan of emusic for the past year, and Amazon’s offering is the first to make me want to try something else.  The price per track is still in emusic’s favor.  With emusic I get to download 40 songs for $9.99 a month.  Though when you factor in the savings of buying whole albums on Amazon, it’s pretty close.  Case in point: you can get all 28 tracks of Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness for only $8.99!

What about iTunes?
While the iTunes store does offer some DRM-free songs, they currently offer only EMI’s catalog at $1.29 per song delivered in AAC format.  Since Amazon also has EMI’s catalog, I could get the same songs there for less and in a more portable format.  This is a no brainer for now. 

Hopefully iTunes and emusic will respond with some improved offerings of their own.  Competition is good.