Pepsi, Amazon Could Spark Digital Music Revolution

Pepsi and Amazon aren’t music producers, but they may inspire large-scale changes in the industry, Reuters says. The two companies will launch a music download promotion of MP3 songs during the Super Bowl next year, a deal pushing music titans like Warner Music and Sony BMG to consider distributing songs in the same format, which bypasses digital rights management technology.

Sony was opposed to the switch but softened its position after successful testing by Universal Music and pressure from Wal-Mart, who, like Amazon, wants to convert its music library to MP3. Digital track sales spiked 416% since 2004, a figure expected to grow after iPods are gifted at Christmas. Amazon and Wal-Mart hope MP3’s will help them cut into Apple iTune’s dominant market share. (More Amazon.com stories.)