Amazon to kickstart MP3 from Europe

RUMOURS ARE CIRCULATING that executives from Seattle-based Amazon's MP3 Store have been in London to talk to major Brit record labels about a launch of the service in Europe, kicking off with the UK.

The usual suggestion that it will be Apple with its Itunes music store that will be shaking in its boots is somewhat tenuous. The major point about Amazon's offering is that it is DRM free.

By contrast, we all know that Apple fanboys are perfectly prepared to put up with that company's devious ways of tying customers into its hardware and Itunes software.

The suppliers who should be most afraid are those desperately trying to flog their wares to mobile phone users – especially since consumers are now just waking up to the fact that their phone is also a pretty decent MP3 player.

If handset users realise they can get their favourite tunes DRM-free from Amazon rather than have them tied to particular handset, the mobile operators are going to lose out.

A good example here is Musicstation from Omnifone which is presently offered exclusively by Vodafone in the UK. It claims to have 45,000 subscribers to its service against the 30,000 customers which Napster UK says it has.

The catch is that with Musicstation, subscribers only 'rent' the music and lose the tracks if they stop subscribing. With many of the big labels willing to go DRM-free this model is looking outdated.

Another supplier which will view Amazon's offering wearily will be Nokia which is gradually putting together its 'Comes with music' offering. The idea here is to supply handsets which have unlimited tracks for a year, free to those who buy special Nokia handsets.

Nokia is slowly signing up the major record labels but Amazon claims to have at least five million tracks available DRM free. And it has demonstrated awareness of Brit pop by recently selling Coldplay's music for way less than Itunes.

Even Omnifone has spotted the danger posed by Nokia's Comes with Music service and has engaged the help of LG to come up with Musicstation Max – a handset that'll come with a year's music download subscription built-in.

Apple might dominate sales of dedicated music players right now but just Nokia – let alone Sony Ericsson, Motorola, Samsung and LG - is shipping millions of MP3-enabled devices.

All Amazon has got to do is get its URL onto those mobile phones. µ