Just before the close of 2007 Warner Music Group joined EMI and Universal by dropping their digital copying restrictions on downloaded songs and offering DRM-free music through Amazon. Today Sony BMG, the last of the big four and the second largest music company in the world, has joined in and removed copying restrictions on their downloaded music and are offering their songs through Amazon as well. This makes Amazon the first online retailer to offer DRM-free song downloads from the world’s four largest music companies.

DRM’s previously had been required by these large music companies in order to prevent songs from being illegally copied which was believed to hurt overall music sales. The DRM would often limit the number of times and devices a song could be copied, such as a limited number of computers or a particular brand of MP3 player. Most consumers and rival media players manufacturers have been generally apposed to the restrictions due to these limitations.

Warner Music Group announced on Thursday that it would join the ranks of EMI Group and Universal Music Group as the third of the four large music labels to offer their digital music titles for sale without any type of copy protection software. Warner will offer its catalog through Amazon in the common MP3 formats that are free to copy to any player or computer, any number of times.

This move comes after Warner Chairman and CEO Edgar Bronfman Jr. defended DRMs at the 3GSM World Conference in Barcelona in February, stressing the importance of interoperability over DRM restrictions likely due to Apple’s DRM through iTunes which restricts music files to be played only on Apple devices.

Amazon.com went full steam into downloadable MP3s today, unveiling a beta version of Amazon MP3, its new digital music download store. Most songs will range in price from 89 to 99 cents, while albums will run you $5.99 to $9.99.

Amazon MP3 features over 2 million songs from more than 180,000 artists represented by over 20,000 major and independent labels. All downloads will be MP3s which are DRM-free, meaning there’s no restrictions on what device or music management software is used to play them. Songs can even be burned to CD.

It certainly didn’t take NBC very long to get over its break-up with Apple’s iTunes. Only a few days after NBC announced that they intended to pull their video content from iTunes, and after a well publicized dispute, NBC has now announced a new partner.

Today NBC Universal and Amazon announced that NBC’s video content will now be available on Amazon’s Unbox media download service. Amazon and NBC are offering a number of incentives hype up the launch of the new content, too. The pilots of the new series of Bionic Woman and Chuck are available for free, even before the first episodes air. Other shows will normally be available for download the day after they air and the companies are even offering 30% off for buying seasons in advance.

Askville is a question and answer website from Amazon that uses a system of Experience Points, Levels, and Quest coins to reward contributors. Askville is similar to Yahoo! Answers or the now defunct Google Answers in that you ask questions of a community of experts.

Questions submitted to the Askville community are open for 7 days. Depending on the interest your question drums up and/or the difficulty of the question you will get up to 5 answers back from the Askville community during those 7 days.

You can monitor new …

TiVo and Amazon.com have announced a new service that will allow TiVo Subscribers to watch Movies and TV Shows downloaded from Amazon Unbox on Their TVs.

With “Amazon Unbox on TiVo”, subscribers will have the ability to rent and purchase movies and television shows. Television shows will cost $1.99 per episode and most movies will range between $9.99 and $14.99 for purchase with movie rentals starting at $1.99. The current list of supported major studios includes CBS, Fox Entertainment Group, Lionsgate, Paramount Pictures, Universal Studios Home Entertainment and Warner Bros.

Once live, …

2006 was a banner year for Amazon.com. In an announcement released today, Amazon.com said 2006, its 12th season, was the most successful holiday season yet.

December 11th marked the busiest day of the season on which Amazon customer orders exceeded 4 million items and Amazon’s worldwide fulfillment network shipped over 3.4 million units to over 200 countries. Amazon.com sustained its reputation for reliability by shipping more than 99 percent of orders in time to meet holiday deadlines worldwide.

Some other interesting Amazon.com 2006 Holiday Facts include:

Amazon sold enough orange flavored Airborne health supplements to supply every …

CustomFlix has announced that it is supporting Amazon Unbox, Amazon.com’s video download service, by adding video downloads to its current DVD and CD on Demand services. CustomFlix, a subsidiary of Amazon.com, is a manufacture-on-demand service for independent filmmakers and other DVD content owners.

Independent filmmakers and other digital media owners will be able to distribute their titles in more formats and expose them to a broader audience consisting of tens of millions of Amazon.com customers. CustomFlix members can add a digital download option to DVD titles available for sale on Amazon.com at no extra …

Amazon.com today announced the opening of its new Automotive Parts and Accessories Store which features over 1 million new, used and remanufactured parts from leading parts and accessories manufacturers such as: Actron, Fram, Holley, Hurst, K&N Engineering, Lund, Meguiar’s, Raybestos and Schumacher. The Store will also list parts from more than 250 independent auto, truck and motorcycle parts retailers.

“We’re providing a broad selection of products for auto enthusiasts, who are passionate about the appearance and performance of their cars, but also making the Automotive Store convenient for the everyday motorist who is looking for

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Amazon launched its movie and TV download service earlier this month. The new service is called Amazon Unbox and will allow users to discover thousands of movies and TV shows in the Amazon Unbox video store.

The system works by installing the Amazon Unbox video player on your PC. Once the player is installed you can download the titles of your choice and watch the videos on your PC, portable device, or TV (through an s-video connection).

One hour of programming is roughly equal to 1GB …