Amazon MP3
Encyclopedia
Amazon MP3 is an online music store
owned and operated by Amazon.com
. Launched in public beta on September 25, 2007, in January 2008 it became the first music store to sell music without digital rights management
(DRM) from the four major music labels (EMI
, Universal
, Warner Music, and Sony BMG), as well as many independents. All tracks were originally sold in 256 kilobits-per-second variable bitrate
MP3
format without per-customer watermarking
or DRM; however some tracks are now watermarked. Licensing agreements with recording companies restrict the countries in which music can be sold: Amazon.com only sells music to US customers while Amazon.co.uk only sells music to UK customers.
After the United States
, Amazon MP3 was launched in the United Kingdom
on December 3, 2008, in Germany
on April 1, 2009, and in France
on June 10, 2009. The German edition has been available in Austria and Switzerland since December 3, 2009.
Amazon launched Amazon Cloud Player as an extension to Amazon MP3 store in the United States
on March 29, 2011.
", to customers located in the United States only. In December 2007 Warner Music announced that it would offer its catalog on Amazon MP3 and in January 2008, Sony BMG
followed suit. The current catalog is 14.8 million songs.
In January 2008, Amazon announced plans to roll Amazon MP3 out "internationally". Amazon limits international access by checking users' credit card issued country. The first international version was launched December 3, 2008 in the United Kingdom
. A German and then a French version of the store followed.
, Debian
, Fedora
and openSUSE
), although the Linux versions are not consistently updated to be compliant with the most recent releases and are not available for 64-bit architectures. Since March 2008 respectively December 2009 there exist the free
alternative downloaders clamz and pymazon for Linux.
It saves purchased music into a particular folder and can, at the user's discretion, add purchased tracks to the library in Windows Media Player
(Windows only) or iTunes
(Windows and Mac OS X only) automatically after download.
An Amazon MP3 application for the Android operating system is preloaded on T-Mobile G1 and Droid
smartphones. The application allows mobile phone users to download individual tracks and albums when on a Wi-Fi network. Palm
phones based on webOS have a preloaded Amazon MP3 application as well and users may download tracks over Wi-Fi or cellular networks. The Amazon MP3 app cannot be removed without rooting the phone and voiding its warranty.
The media management application doubleTwist
for Mac OS X and Windows also has an integrated Amazon MP3 store which enables users to search, buy and sync MP3s directly to non-Apple devices.
introduced a Pepsi Stuff
promotion in partnership with Amazon MP3. Customers can exchange points offered on 4 billion Pepsi bottles for, among other prizes, MP3 downloads from Warner, EMI, and Sony BMG (though not Universal).
Rockstar Games
' 2008 title Grand Theft Auto IV
connects to Amazon MP3. Players can register on the Rockstar Games Social Club
web site to receive e-mail outside the game containing a link to buy marked songs from Amazon MP3.
MySpace
has sold music from Amazon MP3 as part of its MySpace Music feature since September 2008.
of GigaOM
also praised the lack of DRM and the high bitrate but disliked the need to install another application to download albums. Overall, the reviewer said "…I think it makes sense for everyone to browse the Amazon store before hitting the 'buy' button on iTunes."
A 2007 study by Eliot Van Buskirk of Wired News
s "Listening Post" blog investigated whether Amazon MP3 was watermarking
tracks with personally identifiable information
. Van Buskirk quoted an Amazon spokesperson as saying, "Amazon does not apply watermarks. Files are generally provided to us from the labels and some labels use watermarks to identify the retailer who sold the tracks (there is no information on the tracks that identifies the customer)." The study concluded that although tracks may be watermarked to indicate that they were purchased on Amazon MP3, there is no data to indicate which specific customer purchased a given MP3 file. This observation reflected Amazon's policy at the time:
By 2011 however the policy had changed and certain explicitly labeled tracks embed "Record Company Required Metadata" including, among other information, unique identifiers:
, and play that music from any supported web browsers. Currently, Amazon Cloud Player is available on the website and within the Amazon MP3 Android application.
Amazon Cloud Player comes with Amazon MP3 Uploader which is an Adobe AIR application that allows a user to upload their iTunes
library or Windows Media Player
library to Amazon Cloud Drive.
Online music store
An online music store is an online business which sells audio files, usually music, on a per-song and/or subscription basis. It may be differentiated from music streaming services in that the music store offers the actual music file, while streaming services offer partial or full listening without...
owned and operated by Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
. Launched in public beta on September 25, 2007, in January 2008 it became the first music store to sell music without digital rights management
Digital rights management
Digital rights management is a class of access control technologies that are used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, copyright holders and individuals with the intent to limit the use of digital content and devices after sale. DRM is any technology that inhibits uses of digital content that...
(DRM) from the four major music labels (EMI
EMI
The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...
, Universal
Universal Music Group
Universal Music Group is an American music group, the largest of the "big four" record companies by its commanding market share and its multitude of global operations...
, Warner Music, and Sony BMG), as well as many independents. All tracks were originally sold in 256 kilobits-per-second variable bitrate
Variable bitrate
Variable bitrate is a term used in telecommunications and computing that relates to the bitrate used in sound or video encoding. As opposed to constant bitrate , VBR files vary the amount of output data per time segment...
MP3
MP3
MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
format without per-customer watermarking
Watermark (data file)
A watermark stored in a data file refers to a method for ensuring data integrity which combines aspects of data hashing and digital watermarking. Both are useful for tamper detection, though each has its own advantages and disadvantages.- Data hashing :...
or DRM; however some tracks are now watermarked. Licensing agreements with recording companies restrict the countries in which music can be sold: Amazon.com only sells music to US customers while Amazon.co.uk only sells music to UK customers.
After the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, Amazon MP3 was launched in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
on December 3, 2008, in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
on April 1, 2009, and in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
on June 10, 2009. The German edition has been available in Austria and Switzerland since December 3, 2009.
Amazon launched Amazon Cloud Player as an extension to Amazon MP3 store in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
on March 29, 2011.
Catalog availability
At launch, Amazon offered "over 2 million songs from more than 180,000 artists and over 20,000 labels, including EMI Music and Universal Music GroupUniversal Music Group
Universal Music Group is an American music group, the largest of the "big four" record companies by its commanding market share and its multitude of global operations...
", to customers located in the United States only. In December 2007 Warner Music announced that it would offer its catalog on Amazon MP3 and in January 2008, Sony BMG
Sony Music Entertainment
Sony Music Entertainment ' is the second-largest global recorded music company of the "big four" record companies and is controlled by Sony Corporation of America, the United States subsidiary of Japan's Sony Corporation....
followed suit. The current catalog is 14.8 million songs.
In January 2008, Amazon announced plans to roll Amazon MP3 out "internationally". Amazon limits international access by checking users' credit card issued country. The first international version was launched December 3, 2008 in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
. A German and then a French version of the store followed.
Supported platforms
Amazon MP3's catalog is accessible from the Amazon.com web site by searching for an artist or title name. To download purchased music, Amazon.com offers the Amazon MP3 Downloader which is optional for individual tracks and required for album purchases. The Downloader is available for Windows (XP, Vista, or 7), Mac OS X 10.4 or higher, and Linux (packages are provided for UbuntuUbuntu (operating system)
Ubuntu is a computer operating system based on the Debian Linux distribution and distributed as free and open source software. It is named after the Southern African philosophy of Ubuntu...
, Debian
Debian
Debian is a computer operating system composed of software packages released as free and open source software primarily under the GNU General Public License along with other free software licenses. Debian GNU/Linux, which includes the GNU OS tools and Linux kernel, is a popular and influential...
, Fedora
Fedora (operating system)
Fedora is a RPM-based, general purpose collection of software, including an operating system based on the Linux kernel, developed by the community-supported Fedora Project and sponsored by Red Hat...
and openSUSE
OpenSUSE
openSUSE is a general purpose operating system built on top of the Linux kernel, developed by the community-supported openSUSE Project and sponsored by SUSE...
), although the Linux versions are not consistently updated to be compliant with the most recent releases and are not available for 64-bit architectures. Since March 2008 respectively December 2009 there exist the free
Free software
Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...
alternative downloaders clamz and pymazon for Linux.
It saves purchased music into a particular folder and can, at the user's discretion, add purchased tracks to the library in Windows Media Player
Windows Media Player
Windows Media Player is a media player and media library application developed by Microsoft that is used for playing audio, video and viewing images on personal computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system, as well as on Pocket PC and Windows Mobile-based devices...
(Windows only) or iTunes
ITunes
iTunes is a media player computer program, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital music and video files on desktop computers. It can also manage contents on iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad....
(Windows and Mac OS X only) automatically after download.
An Amazon MP3 application for the Android operating system is preloaded on T-Mobile G1 and Droid
Motorola Droid
The Motorola Droid is an Internet and multimedia enabled smartphone designed by Motorola, which runs Google's Android operating system. The Droid had been publicized under the codenames Sholes and Tao and the model number A855...
smartphones. The application allows mobile phone users to download individual tracks and albums when on a Wi-Fi network. Palm
Palm, Inc.
Palm, Inc., was a smartphone manufacturer headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, that was responsible for products such as the Pre and Pixi as well as the Treo and Centro smartphones. Previous product lines include the PalmPilot, Palm III, Palm V, Palm VII, Zire and Tungsten. While their older...
phones based on webOS have a preloaded Amazon MP3 application as well and users may download tracks over Wi-Fi or cellular networks. The Amazon MP3 app cannot be removed without rooting the phone and voiding its warranty.
The media management application doubleTwist
DoubleTwist
doubleTwist Corporation is a digital media company founded by Monique Farantzos and Jon Lech Johansen. It is backed by Index Ventures and Northzone Ventures....
for Mac OS X and Windows also has an integrated Amazon MP3 store which enables users to search, buy and sync MP3s directly to non-Apple devices.
Partnerships
On February 1, 2008, PepsiPepsi
Pepsi is a carbonated soft drink that is produced and manufactured by PepsiCo...
introduced a Pepsi Stuff
Pepsi Stuff
Pepsi Stuff was a major loyalty program launched by PepsiCo, first in North America on March 28, 1996 and then around the world, featuring premiums — such as T-shirts, hats, denim and leather jackets, bags and mountain bikes — that could be purchased with Pepsi Points through the Pepsi Stuff...
promotion in partnership with Amazon MP3. Customers can exchange points offered on 4 billion Pepsi bottles for, among other prizes, MP3 downloads from Warner, EMI, and Sony BMG (though not Universal).
Rockstar Games
Rockstar Games
Rockstar Games is a major video game developer and publisher based in New York City, owned by Take-Two Interactive following its purchase of UK video game publisher BMG Interactive. The brand is mostly known for Grand Theft Auto, Max Payne, L.A...
' 2008 title Grand Theft Auto IV
Grand Theft Auto IV
Grand Theft Auto IV is a 2008 open world action video game published by Rockstar Games, and developed by British games developer Rockstar North. It has been released for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 video game consoles, and for the Windows operating system...
connects to Amazon MP3. Players can register on the Rockstar Games Social Club
Rockstar Games Social Club
Rockstar Games Social Club is a free online service provided by Rockstar Games for use with their latest generation of games. Rockstar Games Social Club was first announced on 27 March 2008, with pre-registration beginning on 14 April 2008. However, that date was moved to 17 April 2008...
web site to receive e-mail outside the game containing a link to buy marked songs from Amazon MP3.
MySpace
MySpace
Myspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....
has sold music from Amazon MP3 as part of its MySpace Music feature since September 2008.
Reaction
Initial reaction to Amazon MP3 was generally positive. The unofficial Apple Weblog praised the lack of DRM especially given that track prices were cheaper than iTunes Plus songs at launch, but the reviewer considered the user experience better in iTunes than on the Amazon web site. Om MalikOm Malik
Om Perkash Malik is an Indian-American web and technology writer. He is the founder of Giga Omni Media, Inc. and executive editor for technology blog GigaOM. He is also a host on a former Revision3 weekly web-business centric podcast, The GigaOm Show.- Personal life and education :Malik was born...
of GigaOM
GigaOM
GigaOM is a Web 2.0 blog started by Om Malik and published by Giga Omni Media, Inc. in San Francisco, California. According to the company website it has a monthly global audience of 500,000. It is among the top 50 blogs worldwide by Technorati Rank, and is listed on CNet's Blog 100 list...
also praised the lack of DRM and the high bitrate but disliked the need to install another application to download albums. Overall, the reviewer said "…I think it makes sense for everyone to browse the Amazon store before hitting the 'buy' button on iTunes."
A 2007 study by Eliot Van Buskirk of Wired News
Wired News
Wired News is an online technology news website, formerly known as HotWired, that split off from Wired magazine when the magazine was purchased by Condé Nast Publishing in the 1990s. Wired News was owned by Lycos not long after the split, until Condé Nast purchased Wired News on July 11, 2006...
s "Listening Post" blog investigated whether Amazon MP3 was watermarking
Watermark (data file)
A watermark stored in a data file refers to a method for ensuring data integrity which combines aspects of data hashing and digital watermarking. Both are useful for tamper detection, though each has its own advantages and disadvantages.- Data hashing :...
tracks with personally identifiable information
Personally identifiable information
Personally Identifiable Information , as used in information security, is information that can be used to uniquely identify, contact, or locate a single person or can be used with other sources to uniquely identify a single individual...
. Van Buskirk quoted an Amazon spokesperson as saying, "Amazon does not apply watermarks. Files are generally provided to us from the labels and some labels use watermarks to identify the retailer who sold the tracks (there is no information on the tracks that identifies the customer)." The study concluded that although tracks may be watermarked to indicate that they were purchased on Amazon MP3, there is no data to indicate which specific customer purchased a given MP3 file. This observation reflected Amazon's policy at the time:
Amazon does not apply watermarks.
Files are generally provided to us from the labels and some labels use watermarks to identify the retailer who sold the tracks (there is no information on the tracks that identifies the customer).
By 2011 however the policy had changed and certain explicitly labeled tracks embed "Record Company Required Metadata" including, among other information, unique identifiers:
Embedded in the metadata of each purchased MP3 from this record company are a random number Amazon assigns to your order, the Amazon store name, the purchase date and time, codes that identify the album and song (the UPC and ISRC), Amazon’s digital signature, and an identifier that can be used to determine whether the audio has been modified. In addition, Amazon inserts the first part of the email address associated with your Amazon.com account
Amazon Cloud Drive/Player
The Amazon Cloud Drive and Cloud Player are integrated with the MP3 store and allow users to store their music on Amazon Cloud DriveAmazon Cloud Drive
Amazon Cloud Drive is a web storage application unveiled by Amazon on March 29, 2011. It provides users with 5 gigabytes of storage space by default, with further storage space costing one dollar per gigabyte per year. Users who purchase an MP3 album through them before the end of 2011 will...
, and play that music from any supported web browsers. Currently, Amazon Cloud Player is available on the website and within the Amazon MP3 Android application.
Amazon Cloud Player comes with Amazon MP3 Uploader which is an Adobe AIR application that allows a user to upload their iTunes
ITunes
iTunes is a media player computer program, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital music and video files on desktop computers. It can also manage contents on iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad....
library or Windows Media Player
Windows Media Player
Windows Media Player is a media player and media library application developed by Microsoft that is used for playing audio, video and viewing images on personal computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system, as well as on Pocket PC and Windows Mobile-based devices...
library to Amazon Cloud Drive.
External links
- Official website, US
- Official website, UK
- Official website, Germany
- Official website, France