Prices range from 94 cents for a single 256kbps MP3 track to a little over $9 bucks per album.The war for dominance of the digital music market continues to heat up with the launch this morning of Wal-Mart's new online music download store, and as usual, it appears that Wal-Mart is the "low price leader." The store isn't MAC or Linux compatible, making it somewhat iPod and iPhone unfriendly, but MP3s are MP3s and most should have no problem getting them transferred to such devices. It also so far includes music from several major record label catalogs including EMI and Universal, meaning that popular artists like The Rolling Stones, Coldplay, KT Tunstall, Amy Winehouse, and Maroon 5 are available. "As we consistently strive to help our customers shop smart at Wal-Mart, our new 'DRM-free' MP3 digital tracks give them the ease and flexibility to play music on virtually any device at a great value," said Kevin Swint, Wal-Mart's senior director and divisional manager for digital media. Wal-Mart will continue to offer its existing WMA-format music downloads. Thus, customers may select the option of MP3-format downloads at 256 kbps for $0.94/track and/or WMA-format downloads at 128 kbps for $0.88/track. Some interesting finds I found:
It may not be the cure-all and end-all to piracy and illegal music file-sharing, but it's still a step in the right direction. By the way, the new store doesn't work in Firefox so you'll need IE to check it out. [WAL-MART MUSIC DOWNLOAD STORE]Looking for more stuff to watch or download?
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If you did not have all of FREE p2p to go up against, they might be able to charge that much....but I just don't see any company selling legal mp3's and making a profit right now.
No DRM
MP3 Format
High quality (256 kbps)
Those are all pretty strong incentives. I would consider buying tunes from them. I hope they are massively successful so that the RIAA and all the sites offering DRM infected, low quality crap will ge the idea.