Amazon launches streaming service in US

Amazon’s music streaming feature went live in the US yesterday.

The service, titled Prime Music, offers the online retailer’s Prime subscribers free, uninterrupted access to songs from two of the three major labels and a slew of independents.

Amazon has been in talks with labels for over six months but it is now apparent they don’t have the licensing for Universal Music Group’s catalogue after alleged strained negotiations. Because of this, Prime Music isn’t deemed a threat to music streaming frontrunners like Pandora and Spotify, despite Amazon’s 244 million active customer accounts.

According to the New York Times, Amazon reached an agreement with small independent labels where they would exchange one-year licensing agreements with shares of a US$5 million royalty pool, while larger labels were offered one-time payments to total US$25 million for a year of access to certain catalogue titles.

Amazon’s 20 million+ Prime subscribers pay US$99 per months for free two-day shipping on orders, access to over 500,000 free ebooks and free streaming for selected films and TV shows.

Prime Music is available on Kindle Fire HD/HDX, iOS, Android, PC, Mac and any Web browser. The service allows users to download tracks and playlists for offline playback on mobile devices.