UK Amazon takes on ITunes

UK Amazon is offering its own package of music downloads, at prices cheaper than iTunes.

Whilst the States have been able to get Amazon tunes for sometime, UK customers can finally get their hands on their Britpop.

In the increasingly cut-throat world of music, Amazon.co.uk has just revealed music downloads that will work on any music player, including the ipod - for 20p per song less than iTunes.

A normal single download will cost 59p (iTunes 79p), whilst an album will cost £3.

The best thing? Amazon has said no to DRM. Every song you purchase can be copied, remixed and passed between machines without the usual copyright issues that come from iTunes.

There's also the bit rate; whilst iTunes uses a 128 kbit/s, Amazon uses 256 kbit/s. It won't mean much in quality on an MP3 player, but it will give the better quality systems something to play with.

Speaking of Play, it's been offering something similar for sometime now, but now uses the full 320 kbit/s.

iTunes has already hit back by offering some of its older albums for £3, such as Oasis/Blur.