Amazon launches Prime Music

NOT FANCY, BUT IT’S FREE—SORTA: It’s not just about free shipping and VOD movies anymore. As expected, Amazon has launched Prime Music, an ad-free value-added streaming service for Amazon Prime subscribers with a relatively modest library of about 1 million songs. For now, UMG isn’t part of the service, and tracks from WMG and Sony will generally be more than six months old, according to The Wall Street Journal. A source told WSJ that Universal was dissatisfied with the licensing rate Amazon offered and concluded that the service wouldn’t get much traction without newer releases. People familiar with the terms of Amazon's contracts said the company wasn't willing to pay what some labels wanted for newer material. “You're not going to see a lot of new releases,” Digital Music VP Steve Boom acknowledged. But “There'll be something for everybody.” The library is accessible on Macs and PCs via CloudPlayer, while smartphone playback is handled by the Amazon Music app. (6/12a)