Commentary: Web Sightings: May 25, 2007

Daily Record, The (Baltimore), May 25, 2007 by Larry Fiorino

Music aficionados have a new service to look forward to in the digital music realm. Amazon.com, one of the largest online retailers, announced the opening of its online music store.

This announcement comes with great anticipation, due not only to the fact that a reputable online store will offer digital music but because the music will be in MP3 form with no digital rights management (DRM) coding. As a result, this downloadable music will have the capacity to be bought by a user and copied an unlimited number of times.

Listeners will no longer be restricted to using a specific digital music device or listening to the music exclusively on their computer. In addition, these generic MP3 music files will be compatible with a wide variety of digital music devices, including Apple iPods and Microsoft Zunes.

Amazon's decision to begin selling DRM-free music comes in response to consumer dissatisfaction with downloaded music. Currently, once a song is downloaded from a service or site it is coded with copy restrictions and buyers are limited to how they can listen to it.

However, compact discs (CDs) have long allowed consumers to copy the music onto their own computers, burn music onto mixed CDs or play the music on a media player of their choice. Consequently, this reality supports Amazon's decision and the recording industry's movement toward DRM-free music.

Thus far, Amazon has announced major record label EMI, which features such artists as Coldplay, Joss Stone and Norah Jones, will join its DRM-free music store along with over 12,000 smaller record labels.

Amazon has not yet stated exactly when its music store will debut, but high expectations surround this new idea. Many other digital music providers, including Apple, are considering the possibility of selling DRM-free music. The music industry hopes this restriction-free movement will effectively cut down illegally downloaded music and boost online music sales to compete with the lucrative CD market.

Larry Fiorino, the founder and chief executive of G.1440, a Baltimore-based e-solutions firm, writes every week for The Daily Record. The opinions expressed are his own and not necessarily those of this newspaper. He can be reached at 410-843-3800.