Shuroki Online

Its not clear if this is a reaction to the Amazon MP3 store, but Apple is now dropping the price of its “iTunes Plus” tracks to $.99 and keeping the higher quality. Good news for customers!

Background: A couple of months ago Apple started selling tracks from record label EMI without Digital Restrictions Management. This was great news and kicked off all sorts of moves from labels, artists, and stores. Along with no DRM, the tracks included better sound quality, which justified charging a premium for them ($1.29 instead of $.99 for all other tracks).

Since then Amazon launched its MP3 store selling ALL tracks without DRM, high quality, and at only $.89 each. I think this Amazon store is the first truly viable competitor to the iTunes store. Sure, other stores offer no DRM (eMusic), all-you-can-download flat rate plans, or cheaper tracks. But none of them had the magic combination that Amazon has hit on:

1. Main-stream/big label artists
2. No DRM
3. Format compatible with the iPod
4. Equal price or cheaper than iTunes
5. Automatic synchronization with your iTunes library

Points 3 and 5 are bigger than a lot of people think. Since something like 80% of all “portable media players” are iPods, the stores that used Microsofts DRM were always doomed since the tracks weren’t compatible. eMusic is great, but its mostly indie artists and has a weird, confusing pricing model.

I think we are finally getting to some realism with regards to digital music. Video still has a long way to go, but “baby steps Bob”..