Pepsi’s promotion is back this year on a much bigger scale — but with singer Justin Timberlake instead of Green Day, and Amazon in place of Apple.   Amazon’s new music store launched in September,  is being hailed as an alternative to Itunes.   All of the labels  have agreed to offer their music catalogs for sale on the Amazon service in  MP3 format, without the  locks that prevent users from making copies of the songs.

Consumers who buy Pepsi drinks will receive points that can be redeemed for music downloads at a special section of the Amazon site. Amazon and Pepsi, a brand of PepsiCo, will give away up to a billion songs, along with prizes like DVDs and electronics, though only a fraction of the eligible Pepsi packages are expected to be redeemed. Amazon will pay the record labels about $.40 for each song that gets downloaded.  Universal Music declined to be a part of the give-away.

Via The New York Times