NEW YORK - Amazon.com and Warner Music Group have announced a deal under which the former will be selling Digital Rights Management or DRM-free music provided by the Warner group. The audio downloads will be available on Amazon MP3, the online store where all songs are playable on any digital media player.
The two companies also announced that several digital music products containing exclusive tracks would also be released for download. Some of the leading names on Warner's music catalog include Led Zeppelin, Aretha Franklin and Sean Paul.
“With the addition of great Warner Music Group content, our customers will discover even more of the music they love on Amazon MP3," said a statement released by Bill Carr, Amazon.com Vice President of Digital Music.
Thus far Sony BMG is the only big music label not to have signed up with Amazon.com. Amazon MP3 was launched n September 2007 and provides DRM-free MP3 music downloads from the stables of 30,000 major and minor record labels.
Warner Music has so far been reluctant to join the DRM-free movement. However the continuing dominance of Apple's iTunes store as well as fears that Apple's grip could actually hot the growth of digital music on the Internet, may have forced Warner to have a rethink.
“We believe that giving consumers the assurance that the music they purchase can be played on any device they own will only encourage more sales of music," said Michael Nash, a Senior Vice President at Warner Music Group.
