Duwaan ni Luigi?

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - Amazon.com became an ally and a rival to Apple on Wednesday with plans to launch an online music store featuring songs without anti-piracy software.

The Internet retailer will compete with Apple's iTunes digital music store while siding with Apple chief executive Steve Jobs in a campaign to eliminate digital rights management (DRM) software in digital songs.

Amazon.com said Wednesday it is launching an online music store this year featuring millions of songs without copying limitations.

The online retail giant said it had a deal with British-based music publisher EMI Music to include its music catalog as well as those from 12,000 other music labels.

Jobs ignited an industry wide debate earlier this year with an open letter calling on recording studios to do away with DRM in music bought online.

EMI has long been a proponent of digital music and is a backer of liberating songs from anti-copying technology.

"It could give Jobs more leverage," analyst Michael McGuire of Gartner Research told AFP.

"Not only do you have the largest online music store, iTunes, clamoring for DRM-free content, you have one of the largest music services asking for the same thing."

EMI is among the world's top five record studios.

For Amazon to become a serious contender in the online music competition and be able to influence recording studios it needs to quickly get on par with iTunes, according to McGuire.

Amazon is one of the largest sellers of music CDs and combines popularity with the ability to target shoppers with reviews and recommendations based on purchases.

"The traffic at Amazon gives them potential," McGuire said. "A come-on to steer people to their online music site."

Amazon said its music store will offer millions of songs exclusively in MP3 format playable on a variety of devices including Apple iPods and Microsoft's Zune.

"Our MP3-only strategy means all the music that customers buy on Amazon is always DRM-free and plays on any device," said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com founder and chief executive.

The announcement did not indicate what Amazon plans to charge for downloads, which cost around one dollar at most digital music sites.

"Over time, we believe Amazon's strong brand and leading e-commerce platform would position the company well in the download market," Lazard Capital Internet analyst Colin Sebastian said.

Last month, EMI said it would offer songs by Coldplay, Madonna and a host of other stars for download without copy protection as part of a deal with Apple's iTunes website.

"I applaud Jeff Bezos and Amazon.com for making this move," said Eric Nicoli, chief executive of EMI Group.

"Their arrival in the digital music market will offer even more consumer choice and will be a big advance in addressing the lack of interoperability which has frustrated many music fans."

EMI last month launched a new premium download service, in which the company began offering retailers DRM-free music to sell in the audio format of their choice up to CD quality.

"EMI is releasing the premium downloads in response to consumer demand for DRM-free, high fidelity digital music for use on home music systems, mobile phones and digital music players," the music group said in a statement.