[macvoiceover] Fwd: Amazon.com Launches Accessible DRM Free Music Store, Undercuts Apple, Inc.'s Prices
As initially reported on yesterdays Main Menu ACB radio show, and today in the WSJ, Amazon.com has just launched an MP3 music store that undercuts market leader Apple, Inc.'s prices, provides music without cumbersome so-called digital rights management, and is accessible.
As reported by Jeff Bishop on Main Menu http://twitter.com/mainmenu http://twitter.com/jeffbishop the buying process can largely be done from with in a web browser. In other music stores, like Itunes, the buying process is often done using an inaccessible client interface that will not work with screen readers used by the blind such as Jaws For Windows.
The Amazon Music store uses a download manager client, which completes the download after a consumer makes a purchase, which has been reported to be accessible.
Its also noteworthy that Amazon recently signed a pact with The National Federation Of The Blind, NFB, pledging to make much of its user interfaces accessible.
Appel, Inc. has made no such agreements, and the Cuperteeno based companys products are largely inaccessible to the blind, and at the same time the firm has alluded legal action on the part of advocacy groups. 


-Mika
http://twitter.com/pyyhkala


Amazon's MP3 Store
Takes Aim at Apple

By MYLENE MANGALINDAN
September 26, 2007; Page B3
Amazon.com Inc. introduced a digital-music store featuring songs without copyright-protection technology, as the online retailer aims to challenge Apple 
Inc.'s online iTunes Store.
Consumers can buy individual songs or entire albums from the Amazon MP3 Store's more than two million songs. They can burn the songs to CDs, play them on music players including Apple's iPod, and copy them to various computers. Amazon is undercutting iTunes' prices by offering songs starting at 89 cents and the top 100 best-selling albums at $8.99; Apple sells songs for 99 cents to $1.29 and albums for $11.99.
The music industry, amid sliding sales and growing piracy, has shown interest in offerings that compete with Apple's, in part so it can have more flexibility to raise prices. Apple iTunes is responsible for 90% or more of online- music downloads some weeks, according to record company executives. The iPod has a 73% market share, according to market-research company NPD Group. An Apple spokesman didn't return calls to comment.
News of the Amazon digital-music service was reported early last year. At the time, people familiar with the matter said the service could launch as early as mid-2006 as Amazon aimed to finalize licensing deals with the major music labels. While Amazon's music store offers songs from Vivendi SA's Universal Music Group and EMI Group PLC, it isn't clear when it might offer music from the other two major music companies, Warner Music Group Corp. and Sony BMG Music Entertainment, a joint venture of Sony Corp. and Bertelsmann AG. Universal, which is making only part of its music catalog available on Amazon's store, has said it is experimenting with music downloads without copyright protection; the company hasn't said that it is permanently selling music in 
that form.
Amazon has expanded beyond selling books, CDs, and DVDs by moving into groceries and online-software services for other companies. The Seattle company began offering digital video a year ago and short stories and chapters of books in electronic form two years ago.
Amazon played down its efforts to take market share from Apple, but highlighted the consumer appeal of songs without so-called digital- rights management, or DRM, technology. Music companies such as EMI have been making their catalogs available without anticopying software. Apple sells EMI's music without 
copying restrictions.

Write to Mylene Mangalindan at
mylene.mangalindan@xxxxxxx
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