Pirates pee on Amazon's MP3 parade

Hijack MP3 announcement

By John Oates • Get more from this author

Posted in Music and Media, 4th December 2008 10:04 GMT

Free whitepaper – PowerEdge M610-M710 spec sheet

Amazon.co.uk yesterday trumpeted the launch of its MP3 download service, but a group of upstart coders chose the same day to blow their own horn about a Firefox plugin linking the e-tailer's service to The Pirate Bay.

The Amazon service is flogging albums from £3 and individual songs from 59p. However, the 'Pirates of the Amazon' extension, also launched yesterday, lets you browse Amazon's music selection and then download the songs for free, or at least for the cost of an internet connection.

The extension was in fact created quite separately. “We are not affiliated with The Pirate Bay, and do not host or even link to any illegal content,” the creators write.

“This artistic project addresses the topic of current media distribution models vs. current culture and technical possibilities,” the creators told TorrentFreak.

The plug-in claims to work across Amazon's products, not just the MP3s. The site is currently down, or "The Ship was hit. We're offline" as the site puts it.

With the add-on installed any Amazon page will include a "download 4 free" button.

Amazon.co.uk is providing 3 million songs, free of Digital Rights Management - so they can be moved to any device once you've paid for them. Have a look yourself here.

The Pirate Bay is now five years old and claims 25 million peers - it recently applied for entry to the Guinness Book of World Records. ®

Free whitepaper – Dell PowerEdge server benchmarks