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British music fans have a new option for purchasing music online: Amazon MP3, which sells music from all of the major labels and thousands of indie labels in the MP3 format without copyright protection. The British version of Amazon MP3 launched quietly on Wednesday, with no fanfare from the retail giant but was spotted by the Britain-based MusicAlly.
Amazon MP3 offers DRM-free music from all of the majors, as opposed to Apple, which must apply DRM to certain tracks per its label contracts. Another difference between the two giants is pricing. While Apple sticks to a single price for all singles, Amazon allows the labels a bit more variety. Songs in the British version of Amazon MP3 currently range from 87 cents to well over $1.20, and we noticed that one classical piece was priced at $4.43.
The increased competition brought about by a heavyweight like Amazon stepping into the ring may already have had an effect on music pricing in the United Kingdom. MusicAlly reports that as Amazon MP3 launched there, Apple dropped its prices on key albums in the British version of iTunes, including those by Oasis and Fleet Foxes, to under $6.
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