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"Amazon MP3, one of the most critically acclaimed music download destinations on the Web to emerge in 2007, is set to begin its venture out to international reaches this year. The company announced today that it would work to expand access to its still-young (but indeed very promising) digital music storefront past the shores of the US and A, and may even solidify deals with \u201Call four major music labels\u201D and \u201Cover 33,000 independent(s)\u201D to encompass worldwide licenses. (Key word being may.)\nOne would naturally expect Amazon to begin its digital download foray past New York and San Francisco harbors by looking first past the Atlantic to Europe, where the company has a strong retail presence for the distribution of hard goods.\nMessage to Steve Jobs: 2008 is the year your golden shoes are held to the fire.\nWhich one might argue is a rather peculiar prospect, really. It certainly isn\u2019t the most optimal thing for Universal, Sony BMG, and Warner to disallow Apple\u2019s iTunes Store from selling DRM-free versions of their catalogues wherever the outlet has indeed made its presence known. They have done so very openly. (All have given Amazon MP3 the go-ahead to proceed entirely DRM-free.)\nStrange it is to find that anti-iTunes sentiment has been so overt. The record companies are not in the most financially dynamic of circumstances at present. They now have been witnesses to significant drops in sales for several successive quarters. So, if one were to think logically of the industry\u2019s \u201Cdire\u201D situation, one would assume labels big and small would opt to deliver content via any channel that might prove lucrative. Apple\u2019s iTunes being the clearest example.\nAlas, the record companies have chosen to \u201Cstick it\u201D to Steve Jobs for gaining too powerful a negotiating hand. Only EMI, the first large recording house to transition to a DRM-free existence, has been willing to play ball as iTunes sees fit.\nWhatever the choices made by the Big Four and the remaining names in the music industry, the news of Amazon MP3\u2019s planned expansion to international dimensions is of course good simply for the sake of increasing consumer choice, and thus competition. The mostly unchallenged domination of iTunes on the Web is not an entirely terrible thing. The company has proven its ability to satisfy demand and do so relatively quickly. But if the world were to continue with the status quo for much longer, we might perhaps see Apple exhibit a kind of classic laziness sometimes borne by unchecked egotism and gigantism.\nOf course, Amazon is no less a giant in the worlds of tech and retail, but one against another is a far more tolerable scenario to envision than one against none."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2008/01/27/amazon-mp3-going-international-in-08/>