eWeak gets it wrong on Amazon, Wal-Mart and iTunes

While I certainly prefer Amazon.com to Wal-Mart, it's a bit unclear to me why eWeak's Daniel Drew Turner doesn't get that Wal-Mart was doing DRM-free MP3s first. That is,Amazon.com this week launched its new Amazon MP3 Store, which, someanalysts say, may become the first serious digital music challenger toApple's dominant iTunes Music Store.Ah, right. I forget that other tech reporters must rely on analysts instead of offering up their own opinions. Must be constrictive around the hips. :)Like the iTMS, Amazon's online store offers digital music tracks andalbums from major-label artists. However, all tracks offered by Amazonare free of DRM (Digital Rights Management) constraints, unlike themajority on iTMS. All $0.99 tracks on iTMS are encoded with Apple'sFairPlay, which restricts the number of computers on which the musiccan be copied. Though some iTunes Plus downloads on iTMS are DRM-freeand encoded at a 256K bps rate, these are priced at $1.29, whereas alltracks on Amazon's store are also 256K bps and come at a lower cost:$0.89 or $0.99.In addition, Amazon's products are in the open MP3 format, whichmakes them playable not only on Apple's iPods but also on a widevariety of digital music players—even Microsoft's slow-selling "iPodkiller," Zune.This is in stark contrast to many other attempts at onlinedigital music stores, such as Wal-Mart's endeavor, which sell onlyDRM-encrypted files that play only in Microsoft's Windows Media Player.In fact, Wal-Mart's digital music site is accessible only onWindows-based PCs.Huh. Actually, Wal-Mart does sell DRM-free MP3 files too. In fact, they've been doing so longer than Amazon. One might thus describe Wal-Mart, and not Amazon, as "the first serious digital music challenger toApple's dominant iTunes Music Store." You know, if one had, say, read my story about this service a month and a half ago.It is true that the Wal-Mart MP3 download site only works with Windows. Or more specificall