Criteria A: Presentation of the issue

DRM which is Digital Rights Management is becoming a huge issue, and all companies are trying to use it so that music won’t be downloaded for free. Amazon launched its music download service last September, and now offers 2.9 million songs without copy protection from Warner, EMI, and Universal (as well as from 33,000 independent record labels). The three formats are MP3 and AAC, which are both open formats, and WMA, a proprietary format owned by Microsoft which dominates the market for online music sales, leaving some consumers confused about what will play where. Now, with the locks off Warner's music, the MP3 format gets a boost--and music downloading moves one step closer to being entirely DRM-free.