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Re: Are You Ready To Hand Over Your Music to Amazon
Thought this article was interesting:
http://www.news.com.au/technology/are-y … 6035505937
Are you ready to hand over your music to Amazon?
FIRST music went digital, then we started downloading it. Soon it may be time to let go altogether.
Pop songs may have moved from vinyl to tape to CD and now iTunes, but one thing has always remained more or less the same.
That's a sense of tangible ownership.
Even MP3s, for the most part, are stored on a device that you can hold in your hand — an iPod, or a laptop, or an external hard-drive.
But the next big shift in music consumption may be to let go altogether and let someone else store your favourite albums for you.
Amazon last week launched a new application called Cloud Player, which has already started shaking up the music industry.
The record labels seem to hate it, tech journos are going nuts for it and Apple is no doubt very, very worried.
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Why? Because it has the potential to replace iTunes.
Cloud Player relies on a new Amazon service called Cloud Drive which allows you to keep your files on the internet instead of your computer.
What the Player does is let you stream music from the Drive to any computer with a web browser like Internet Explorer, or to Android smartphones like the HTC Desire.
When you buy new music from Amazon, you don't need to download it. It just goes straight to your Cloud Drive.
However it's not only for music available on Amazon. You can also store your own song library on there.
The Cloud Player makes that easy to do by scanning your computer for songs — including those on iTunes — and uploading them to the Drive for you.
You get 5GB of space free when you sign up — enough for about 40 albums — and up to 1000GB if you want to pay for it.
Music bought from Amazon is hosted for free and doesn't count towards your limit.
Listen from anywhere
The big selling point of Cloud Player is that it frees up your songs from the limits of a single computer.
Using iTunes, you can authorise several computers to play songs purchased through the iTunes Store — but in some ways, they are still locked to the one you downloaded them to.
For example, if you were to buy a new computer, the first thing you might do is load iTunes and try to download all the songs you'd purchased again.
No dice.
You have to go back to your old computer and transfer them to the new one manually, by burning a CD or moving them over a network.
With the Amazon system, your music will always be there on Cloud Drive no matter which computer or Android phone you're using.
The downside is that you'll have to be connected to the internet to listen to it, and it could eat up your download quota.
The other downside, for some, is having to say goodbye to the idea of music as something you can store on the shelf or even your own computer.
Australians won't have to tackle that decision for a while. The Cloud Player is only available in the US for the moment.
However it's only a matter of time before Amazon's service, or one like it, hits our shores.
Both Google and Apple are thought to have been working on similar services for years and are expected to launch them soon.
There are also a number of start-ups doing the same thing, though they don't have the same clout or reach as the tech giants.
In December 2009, Apple purchased an online music store called Lala which had similar features to Cloud Player. It was shut down in early 2010.
Meanwhile, details of Google Music have been trickling out for the past year — but it has yet to see the light of day.
Some experts think Google and Apple could be waiting to see how Amazon's new service fares in the market before launching their own versions.
Cloud Player has already raised the hackles of at least one major record label and it looks like there may be a legal battle in the future.
Shaking up the industry
Not only has Amazon beaten its rivals to the punch with Cloud Player, it's also issued a challenge to the music industry.
When Cloud Player was launched, it was reported that record labels such as Sony Music had been given just one week's prior notice.
That snub no doubt led to the cool public response from Sony, which was, more or less — we've rung the lawyers.
"We're keeping all of our legal options open," a spokesperson told Reuters the day Cloud Player was unveiled.
Sony's beef was that Amazon hadn't struck a licensing deal with the company to stream music by its artists, meaning it wouldn't get any money from people using the new service.
Amazon's response was blunt — we don't need to strike a deal.
"Cloud Player is an application that lets customers manage and play their own music," a spokesperson told Ars Technica.
"It's like any number of existing media management applications. We do not need a license to make Cloud Player available."
Amazon's argument is that it only stores music that its users already own, and therefore already have the rights to play.
"The functionality of saving MP3s to Cloud Drive is the same as if a customer were to save their music to an external hard drive," the spokesperson said.
Because Cloud Player doesn't include the ability — officially, at least — to share songs with other users, Amazon may dodge some of the legal problems faced by other services.
Music streaming and sharing website Grooveshark was sued by EMI in 2009, before reaching an agreement to pay licensing fees to the label. It has since been sued by Universal as well.
EMI did take legal action against a service similar to Cloud Player — which didn't allow sharing — called MP3tunes in 2007, but it lost the case and was not allowed to inspect the files stored by users.
If Amazon does manage to get away without deals with the major labels, it will also distinguish Cloud Player from its rival across the Atlantic, Spotify.
Spotify, which has up to 10 million users but is only available in Europe, offers unlimited streaming of songs — but only those covered by licensing deals.
Spotify users also have to sign up for a paid account to stream music on their phones, while the Cloud Player app is free.
Read more: http://www.news.com.au/technology/are-y … z1ItKjJN7X
Re: Are You Ready To Hand Over Your Music to Amazon
Right out of the gate I see tons of problems with it.
I'm sorry, call me 'old fashioned', call me an old man, whatever... I still believe in physical hard copies of actual music (CD's) that aren't going anywhere. They might take up more space, but they'll always be there, able to be played on a stereo system, OR transferred to an MP3 player at a quality of your choosing, whether 96k or lossless.
They also aren't locked down by licensing issues. The songs are yours, AND you don't need the internet connection to store the songs or albums.
The Cloud Player only works for as good as you have an internet connection. Alot of phones have shittastic internet connections, and if you don't live in a big city, the countryside is loaded with lots of roaming and dead spots that will kill the functionality of the Cloud Player. This isn't counting unforseen downtime due to maitenence of acts of God.
For all this advancement in technology, i'm still not that impressed.
Re: Are You Ready To Hand Over Your Music to Amazon
Think cloud player sounds great and the second there's an iPhone app for it, I'm going to use it. Only a matter of time before stuff like this comes up for movies, exe files, etc. Will be nice to be able to access anything from anywhere.
Re: Are You Ready To Hand Over Your Music to Amazon
Yeah the challenge will be having a good enough uninterrupted internet connection to stream the music. There would be nothing worse than having songs playing that continually stutter.
I have that issue myself with itunes right now having to load music onto different computers, my iphone etc etc. The Cloud system sounds like it could be great.
That said I agree Axlin08 that there will always be a place for physical product. One thing that has been overlooked with all this technology is the quality of the sound. Having a high quality physical version would have to appeal to some people. Throw in some quality artwork with it, maybe a DVD etc there is still a place for some sort of physical release from a band.
Re: Are You Ready To Hand Over Your Music to Amazon
The other big problem I see is the cost of bandwidth. Between Netflix, Sirius, youtube, etc.- streaming from the cloud becomes more ubiquitous, and in response, the mobile phone compnies suddenly pull their unlimited data plans or Jack the prices significantly.
Re: Are You Ready To Hand Over Your Music to Amazon
Yeah that's a big issue using your download quota up. Maybe the isp's will do some sort of deals. Like with my apple tv if I download and watch movies thru it, it doesn't count towards my download quota it's in the "free zone" since they have done a deal with apple and other companies.
Re: Are You Ready To Hand Over Your Music to Amazon
Yeah the challenge will be having a good enough uninterrupted internet connection to stream the music. There would be nothing worse than having songs playing that continually stutter.
I have that issue myself with itunes right now having to load music onto different computers, my iphone etc etc. The Cloud system sounds like it could be great.
That said I agree Axlin08 that there will always be a place for physical product. One thing that has been overlooked with all this technology is the quality of the sound. Having a high quality physical version would have to appeal to some people. Throw in some quality artwork with it, maybe a DVD etc there is still a place for some sort of physical release from a band.
Some bands have already went that direction, NIN and The Cult come to mind, that are going to start selling the physical copies, whether CD, LP, USB stick, directly to their fans.
There eventually isn't going to even be distribution or labels anymore. I'm convinced music stores will eventually be cut down to just download ports and USB sticks of music, especially with more and more car stereos having USB ports.
Eventualy there's just gonna be one rack of CD's & LP's, of either the most classic albums, or most popular, and that'll be all the physical copies you see in an actual store, and in the case of the U.S., most of that will probably be at a Wal-Mart, not an actual music store. Those suckers will be reduced to the "50's Malt Shoppe", and be some sort of cool throwback for 15 year olds to hang out at and pretend like it's 1987.
- mickronson
- Rep: 118
Re: Are You Ready To Hand Over Your Music to Amazon
already have my music streamed to my phone via cloud. not amazon tho.
I see no biggie.
