Since it was introduced six months ago, Amazon’s online music store, which offers copyright protection-free music, has climbed the ladder and reached the number two spot in the market. First place belongs to Apple’s (News - Alert) iTunes Store.

 

A report in USAToday.com said the beginning of the end of digital rights management (DRM) restricted music began about 12 months ago when Apple and EMI dropped the first ever bombshell on the proponents of DRM music. It was the first time a major label dared to bare its copy-protected music and sell it without any protection. The agreement was to sell 150,000 songs without digital rights management (DRM) software.

 

Earlier, Apple CEO Steve Jobs (News - Alert) predicted that his iTunes catalog would be 50 percent DRM-free by the end of 2007. But that never happened. Now, USAToday.com reports that Apple has come up with a mega deal to sell unprotected music. The company believes its customers will be delighted about the EMI deal and that digital sales will greatly increase. Apple now has 2 million songs from EMI and independent labels available without DRM, out of its 6 million-song catalog.

 

Initially Apple planned to gain some extra money when it sold music without the copy protection. USAToday.com indicates that, while the company was able to sell songs with copy protection for 99 cents each, at first it sold DRM-free music for $1.29 per song. As the competition increased, though, had to lower its prices too. Eventually, the company began to sell DRM free music for 99 cents when Amazon launched its MP3 download store.

 

Consumers have long been complaining about DRM protected music saying it hindered what they could do with their purchases. For example, a song sold at iTunes with DRM couldn't be played on a Microsoft (News - Alert) (MSFT) Zune digital music player.