I read a post today at c|net saying that Scott Ambrose Reilly is moving on from Amazon.com’s music division. I of course had no idea who he was until I read the article. Now that I know who it is, I have to say thanks for all he has done.
3+ years ago, 98% of the online digital music user base blindly and without question bought music from iTunes with Apple DRM so they could play in only Apple products. Smart business decision by Apple. ::cough:: monopoly, illegal business activities ::cough:: Of course the customers didn’t care because they had no choice. Not only that, but consumers are nothing but stupid, uninformed, lazy sheep.
Other services were out that offered music DRM free. Allofmp3.com was the first commercial music service that was DRM free and you could select the bitrate of your choice. Absolutely brilliant and ahead of its time. Of course they were sued and forced out of business (surprise, surprise). Nevertheless, it showed the way mp3 music is meant to be distributed. I never thought a major retail outlet would ever offer DRM free at reasonable prices.
Then came Amazon.com online music library. When I heard the news that they would be opening an online music library with no DRM at 99 cents a song I was completely amazed. How in the world did Amazon pull that off and get music labels to agree to it? What businessman had the ability to convince music labels this was the wave of the future?
Meanwhile iTunes still had DRM.
Amazon changed the game so much that it FORCED Apple to provide a DRM free alternative to customers, albeit at a cost to the consumer. Prices were over 99 cents for DRM free music on iTunes and no one seemed too outraged about it.
Meanwhile I thought to myself, only a fucking moron would ever buy anything from iTunes. I still believe that and have always thought that. I implore everyone to buy their music from Amazon whenever possible.
While I may have gone off-topic (can you blame me?), I want to come back to my original point of this article. To thank Scott Ambrose Reilly, because to me, he is the person we can thank for DRM free music today.