At least one interception in the Super Bowl will not involve a football. Pepsi-Cola, which four years ago sponsored the free downloading of 100 million songs from Apple’s iTunes online store, will do a similar promotion that year with a new player — Amazon.

According to a published report, that year’s ad to promote the giveaway will feature Justin Timberlake. The 2004 iTunes promotion featured the band Green Day singing I Fought the Law to promote the giveaway from the major record labels, and it helped get the word around about legal downloads through iTunes.

Competitor to iTunes

The move is both symbolic and potentially urgent, as the Amazon music service, offering MP3 songs that are free of digital rights management restrictions, is increasingly being seen as an alternative to iTunes’ dominance of online sales. Some major record labels are reportedly at odds with Apple by pricing and other issues on iTunes, and are looking to Amazon to

become a competitive alternative.

Amazon could become the store that will match iTunes in clout, something that a variety of other music services have not yet accomplished. iTunes dominates the online music industry with an estimated 70 percent of all music downloads.

In September, Amazon launched its MP3 store, where DRM-free songs are available for as little as 89 cents each. By contrast, the iTunes music store offers songs at 99 cents each and, except for a well-publicized deal for songs from EMI’s collection, its songs use DRM.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs has urged the music industry to drop DRM for iTunes, as EMI has done. But record labels are reportedly upset with iTunes by the revenue split and other ways in which its music is sold on iTunes, and have been looking for alternatives.

Universal Music, for instance, has been developing a variety of other distribution…

Orginal post by Top Tech News