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Amazon launches music store without copying protection

Internet retailer Amazon.com Inc launched its highly anticipated digital music store on Tuesday with nearly 2.3 million songs, none of them protected against copying.

The store, Amazon MP3, lets shoppers buy and download individual songs or entire albums. The tracks can be copied to multiple computers, burned onto CDs and played on most types of PCs and portable devices, including Apple Inc's iPod and Microsoft Corp's Zune.

Songs cost US$0.89 to US$0.99 each and albums sell for US$5.99 to US$9.99.

Major music labels Universal Music Group and EMI Music have signed on to sell their tracks on Amazon, as have thousands of independent labels.

The company said several smaller labels have begun selling their music without copy protection on the Amazon store.

Amazon's store competes with Apple's market-leading iTunes, which is also offering some songs without digital rights management (DRM) technology, which prevents unauthorized copies from playing.

Although DRM helps stem illegal copying, it can frustrate consumers by limiting the type of device or number of computers on which they can listen to music. Copy-protected songs sold through iTunes generally won't play on devices other than the iPod.
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