1,000,000,000 free songs for the taking

Some crazy give-away madness from Amazon is being set up next year: a billion free MP3s.

Well, up to a point - Pepsi are planning a promotional push that will see five billion of their products shipping with a code; five codes will be swappable for a free mp3 download off Amazon. We'd imagine that Pepsi will be somewhat upset if every single bottletop gets used to grab a free track, even at the 40 cents that Amazon is trying to persuade the labels to accept in return for the songs.

Certainly, experience from both MyCokeMusic and a Pepsi/iTunes tie-up suggests that dentists will see more action as a result of the pop-and-pop linkage than will Amazon.

In other mp3 news: WalMart is rumoured to have told labels that if they don't start to provide them with un-DRMed tracks, they'll find walmart.com won't be stocking their wares.