Amazon Launches Digital Music Store

Seattle, Amazon.com Inc. launched its much-anticipated digital-music store Tuesday with nearly 2.3 million songs, none of them protected against copying, according to the Associated Press.

The store, Amazon MP3, lets shoppers buy and download individual songs or entire albums. The tracks can be copied to multiple computers, burned onto CDs and played on most types of PCs and portable devices, including Apple Inc.'s iPod and Microsoft Corp.'s Zune.

Songs cost 89? to 99? each and albums sell for $5.99 to $9.99.

Major music labels Universal Music Group and EMI Music Publishing have signed on to sell their tracks on Amazon, as have thousands of independent labels. The company said several smaller labels are selling their music without copy protection for the first time on the Amazon store, including Rounder Records and Trojan Records.