Amazon is releasing a site called SoundUnwound — a version of IMDB for musicians, editable by anyone like Wikipedia. Few know that IMDB, the movies database, is owned by Amazon.com. But the universal vendor seems to value the data therein — knowing which obscure movies a now-famous actor starred in helps cross-sell DVDs. Most of SoundUnwound's information comes from YouTube, Wikipedia, and MusicBrainz — another open-content music database. You can find out who the sound engineer for Amy Winehouse's studio debut was, if you're so inclined — okay, it's Jimmy Hogarth. With free data, Amazon gets what it pays for, in the form of broken track listings and unknown playtimes on songs, but it's still good enough to help upsell you more MP3s from its struggling music store.

eMusic CEO David Pakman estimates that Amazon.com's MP3 store may have sold 27 million tracks since opening 6 months ago — which sounds good until you consider that Apple's iTunes moves 2 billion songs a year. Pakman also estimates that Amazon's store is adding $7 million, after the labels' take and expenses. At least people are looking forward to a new Kindle, right? [Silicon Alley Insider]