Rumour: Amazon to launch its iTunes rival by mid-September
It’s no secret that Amazon is working on a digital music store: the company announced it back in May. However, a well-sourced report in the New York Post says the new service has a tentative launch date of… this month!
Stuff we knew already: the store will sell DRM-free MP3 downloads, and Amazon had signed up major label EMI. New stuff from the NYP article: Universal Music Group is now also on board, and the store will have around a million tracks at launch. Pricing in the US is likely to work out as $0.99 for popular and new songs, and $0.89 for archive songs and stuff from new bands.
If true, expect that to hover around the 79p and 69p mark respectively here in the UK, although there’s no news on whether the mid-September launch date applies here too. One thing’s clear: Apple’s iTunes faces a fight to hang onto its digital music dominance, what with Amazon and the Nokia Music Store both launching by Christmas.
(via New York Post)
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