Amazon

Well, I leave off blogging about eMusic for a month and look what happens: I happen to check Hypebot this evening and find that Amazon is rumored to be buying eMusic. eMusic’s CEO David Pakman recently denied rumors of eMusic being sold, so this may or may not prove to be just a rumor and nothing more. In the meantime that hasn’t stopped some people on the EMusic message boards and elsewhere from being concerned that this might be The End of eMusic As We Know It. However I think if it does occur such an acquisition could make good sense for both companies and might be to the ultimate benefit of eMusic subscribers, Amazon customers, and the music industry in general. ...

When I last commented on the subject of Amazon.com and digital music I had some rather scathing things to say"). Now, according to a Hypebot article Amazon is rumored to be rethinking its former idea of setting up yet another DRM-hobbled would-be competitor to the iTunes Store, and considering selling DRM-free MP3 tracks under a variable pricing model. Assuming that the rumors are true (not always a safe assumption), what conclusions can we draw from this? ...