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Amazon looks to purchase AmieStreet music site

6 August 2007 9:46 by Dave "Davedough" Horvath | 1 comment

The first round of negotiations are underway between Amazon and a music site known as AmieStreet. Started by three Brown University students, AmieStreet has a unique approach at selling music via its website. Their model consists of new music being uploaded and begins with a price of zero cents. The first time the Track is downloaded, it receives a price to it and incrimentally goes up depending on its popularity within the site. The pricing will eventually hit a maximum of 98 cents. This is in stark contrast to popular music sites like iTunes where it has a standard of 99 cents per track, no matter how popular the tune is.

The senior vice president of business for Amazon stated, "The idea of having customers directly influence the price of songs is an interesting and novel approach to selling digital music."

The exact terms of this negotiation for AmieStreet, which started only last October, have not been disclosed. Amazon, however leads the race to purchase the start-up ahead of a few unnamed private investors. Amazon has already stated that by next spring, it will open its own music site and has already agreed to carry music from EMI Group.

The pricing model of AmieStreet has already raised interest in music labels such as Warner Brothers who have repeatedly disagreed with the standard flat-rate pricing structure that Apple imposes on its iTunes service. Apple, however refuses to budge on its current scheme.

The owners of AmieStreet say that new funding such as this would allow them to branch into a more social-networking type environment similar to those found on popular sites like MySpace. According to AmieStreet representatives, they make their money by giving 70 percent of track sales to the artist in which the track belongs to. They had not released a statement on saying just how many songs they are selling or if it has yet become a profitable venture.

Source:
Reuters

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