Amazon music: 99 cents for 256kbps MP3 DRM free

[Michael Brian Bentley]

The bottom line is that because iTunes Music Store was the only 
serious game in town, there was no bona fide reason for Apple to 
change/lower/adjust prices, and they only recently budged on DRM 
content because of pressure from the outside. They didn't budge much, 
that's evident. What we need is a comparison of who gets what out of 
each sale to better understand what's going on.

iTunes Music Store, until Amazon's MP3 store really goes live (it is 
currently Beta), has no official competition. So, I'm not really sure 
why Apple would have had to lower prices, or made prices more 
flexible (higher for new best sellers, lower for backlist titles) 
before Amazon deployed.

Apple still doesn't have to do anything until people start buying 
from Amazon in serious quantities. Frankly, people are going to be 
buying 75% of the time one way or the other for iPods anyway, and 
they're going to dump the music into iTunes.

People seem anxious to ditch the Windows iTunes package, from what I hear.

I want to know how much of each sale goes to the content provider on 
the Amazon side, is it comparable or larger than what they get on the 
iTMS side? Universal says that the iTMS contract is horrible, I'd 
like to know in what way.

There is a watermark in all the MP3s from Amazon, but they all 
apparently just say "Amazon" or some such, according to Gizmodo.

When iTunes goes all non-DRM, will they stick with AAC?

Can we talk about this, or is this OT?