Still, big record companies have historically backed DRM as a means of protecting their copyright and preventing piracy.īut the technology often imposes severe limits on which portable devices customers can use to listen to their music. 'Our MP3-only strategy means all the music that customers buy on Amazon is always DRM-free and plays on any device,' said Jeff Bezos, chief executive of Amazon.ĭRM has long been a controversial technology, both within the music industry and in the music-listening population at large.ĮMI became the first major record label to offer to drop DRM from much of its catalogue earlier this year.Īpple, whose iTunes Music Store remains the biggest online seller of downloaded music, has since introduced an option to buy these tunes at a higher price without DRM protection. Millions of songs will be sold without Digital Rights Management (DRM) software, allowing - for example - customers to burn their own CDs freely.Īmazon says it will launch the new store later this year.
Amazon will sell digital downloads without DRM protectionĪmazon has announced plans to launch a digital music store that will allow customers to download music without any digital copying protection.Īmazon has licences to sell music from 12,000 record labels, including EMI Group's digital catalogue.