Amazon's Cloud music storage is here..

While this is probably for another thread, I've noticed my FB icon appearing on more and more other sites, not just ones I remember 'linking' to FB formally. This sort of thing is now going way beyond cookies. It's now clear who's watching what, and I'm not sure what to do about it.

The worry about the cloud is that should you have a drm-cleaned iTune (say) file that someone will be reporting that to the owner. Obviously with it on your drive that isn't a problem, but within the Terms of Amazon Cloud you could be turned in to that owner. That's basically what's happening with the file sharers now .. someone comes looking for a particular connection to a particular share and follows the trail. There are several companies involved working for the rights owners.

 

I guess my limitation is that I haven't mp3'd my entire collection and I'm not the most organized collector here. I have backed a lot up lossless, but not all. So for now I'll probably stay within the 20GB limit to augment the storage on my droid, not as an all-encompassing backup means.

 

They're not using tags. They are using La La's sound recognition technology to find the music you own that they also have (they purchased lala.com last year or the year before apparently for this specific purpose.) What they find that matches is then kept for you in the iTunes Cloud, and what doesn't match can be uploaded. What I'm unclear on is what their limit of 20,000 songs is - is it based on 20,000 songs, period, or 20,000 songs you upload from your collection? The latter makes more sense, but there's no telling. I can't see why they'd have a limit on the number of songs you can match, but can certainly see why they'd limit the number of songs people upload. I see people mention collections of 150-200,000 songs quite frequently now.

This is the big question, isn't it? I personally don't think Apple is going to do anything to help out these leeches when it comes to something like this. Apple knows that if anything happens, they'll lose all of the very valuable consumer confidence that makes them such a great company. No way, I don't see it happening.

The way this is all set up is to encourage people to buy from iTunes, and that helps both Apple and the music industry. I have to admit I've bought a number of things just thinking that they'll be easily available there without having to do anything. While filesharing is rampant now, it isn't among everyone - mostly young people with time to kill - but there's also a huge market of people out there who don't buy music from iTunes because they don't "get" it yet. iTunes in the Cloud will help transition them over - I know my parents don't get this, but they also don't really care about CDs, either. Click and buy is just fine for them.

On a side note, I do get a kick out of the people who think that somehow they're going to be able to sync their junky old 128kbps mp3s with iTunes in the Cloud one time and never again, and then never pay next year, meaning they'll "make off" with high quality AAC files from Apple. Like Apple didn't think of that. No - what'll happen is that you'll have to sync regularly to keep things in check or the files "die" on the device, and the files are locked into the device unlike they are now (you CAN get programs that will pull your songs off iPods and iPhones right now.) I'm certain that once you elect to go for iTunes Cloud syncing, it encrypts everything from Apple to a point that makes it impossible to keep.

 

Sorry if this has been discussed already - I didn't have time to read every page of this thread.

It seems to me that the current trend in music and movie entertainment is to eliminate physical ownership. Streaming media is bigger than ever, and downloading mp3 or hi-res audio data is giving way to industry-operated storage (cloud) services. I don't think the music industry wants consumers to be able to dowload mp3s to their personal storage devices. I think the days of being able to buy CDs and DVDs are coming to an end. I also think the days of renting DVDs and Blu-Rays are numbered. I wouldn't be surprised at all if everything was accessed via company-owned and operated storage and delivery within a few years. I personally do not like this trend. To me, if I pay a purchase fee, I should own it. I think this is in part a result of digital copying & file-sharing, so maybe we brought this on ourselves....but I hope I don't have to one day rely on Amazon or any other company to access and to listen to music. Long live the physically ownable CD or DVD.

 

No, the trend is to provide greater opportunities for media consumption. The more media you consume, the more money the music/movie/game industry can make. With streaming (et al), you can consume everywhere: at your home, in your car, on vacation, at your friends' houses, in the park, etc. When you own a CD, you have take it with you everywhere, and the convenience factor is less.

I understand where you're coming from, but this is not the trend going forward. I've said a variation on this before, but there are thousands of teenagers that have never physically "owned" a CD/DVD, an may never! And they enjoy the music, just as much as you or I did.

 

I agree with you -- this is exactly where things are headed. CD's, DVD's, and (possibly) physical books are coming to an end. That's not to say it will happen tomorrow... my guess is that CD's will be phased out in the next 5-10 years, DVD's within 5 years, and Blu-Ray's within about 15 years. Physical books will be dead last - I don't see that happening for at least 20 years, but I think it will eventually be a niche product, kind of like what vinyl is today. I don't think books will ever completely die out - different experience versus an e-book (again, like vinyl).

The retailers want it to reduce costs, but also putting content in the cloud gives them better control. But the real push is going to be the consumer, themselves - they've bought into digital music downloads and it's only a matter of time before they buy into the same with video - probably the only thing holding them back is a "standard". With music, we have MP3's that all the vendor's support, but not so with video - the vendors need to work that out, first. And ebooks are even more fragmented, right now. Will take them time to correct.

Same. In my case, I've been using Vorbis for the last few years. But I'm finally giving in and moving to V0 MP3. The reason being that my primary DAP (a Cowon D3) will be used primarily with FLAC so my lossy files are now secondary. This finally frees me up to use a Zune, an iPod, this cloud service or any other device for my lossy files. I'm going to slowly migrate as I do my needle drops.

 

The only music I keep in Amazon's and iTune's cloud are the files I have bought at those respective retailers. I download and back everything up on my own hard drives, but I figure these online storage places are a good way just in case. If I have to reinstall iTunes on another HD or something, I don't have to import everything all over again. It's already up there. I think that's what the advantage is, for people who don't back up anything, and you know most people don't.

 

Agreed. I also think that Amazon upped the ante with the "unlimited music storage" option. They are a smart company -- allow unlimited uploads for "free" the first year, get users used to the cloud and then hit them with a $20 fee for the next year. I bet that at least 25% pay for that first year as they will have become accustomed to the cloud.

The other thing that hasn't been touched on yet, and that might derail the cloud efforts of Amazon and Apple, is data costs. In the home it's a no brainer, but on the road data costs in the US are still fairly high. Netflix will have the same issues, for video streaming. Once the costs drop, I think that will really push Joe Consumer into the cloud.

 

One can now stream their music via wi-fi in one's car that so equipped. But, it's hideously expensive if you're talking about a road trip. And, you can indeed download and stream from your personal server on the go, but it's also expensive. That's why I still go with my music backed up on a portable HD.

 

...if you don't have a nationwide unlimited plan or you have a provider with poor coverage. It remains to be seen, as more people latch onto internet radio or the cloud in their cars, if the infrastructure can handle it and what new fees/bandwidth caps will be added. Definitely a fluid situation, but exciting possibilities these days.

 

Just received this email from amazon.com:

----------------------------------------------

We've Made Improvements to Cloud Player

When you sign into the updated Cloud Player, we'll upgrade your music to high-quality 256 Kbps audio at no additional charge.

We've also made it easier to get your music from your computer to Cloud Player. We'll match your songs to Amazon's 20 million song catalog. All songs we match - even music purchased from iTunes or ripped from CDs - are instantly made available in Cloud Player.

Plus, MP3 songs and albums you purchase from Amazon - even those you purchased in the past - will be automatically saved to Cloud Player, which means you'll have a secure backup copy of the music you buy at Amazon, free of charge. Learn more.

Your Account Is Changing

You've been enjoying a free promotional subscription to Amazon Cloud Drive and Cloud Player. After it ends, you will be limited to 250 imported songs in Cloud Player.

When you upgrade to Cloud Player Premium for $25 per year, you can import up to 250,000 songs. Upgrade before your promotional subscription ends and get 50 GB of Cloud Drive storage at no additional cost. Learn more.

 

Still trying to determine if "amazon match" is a good backup to iTunes match. The 250,000 is certainly appealing, but I'm also completely tied to the apple/iTunes ecosphere.

Started playing around with it yesterday but since I haven't really been maintaining my amazon library, my cloud isn't all neat & organized like myitunes match cloud is.

Has anyone started using the matching service in comparison to apple?

 

Thanks -- I heard this was coming. Will be nice to have an alternative to iTunes Match, which has its share of issues.

I wish Amazon did AAC's, however - or at least 320kps MP3.

 

I have iTM until November, and Amazon extended my Cloud Premium Promo until August 20th so I can test that out.

The main con has been and will probably continue to be the 256kps MP3 format (for me). 256kps AAC's will be a bit better, overall. But, the 250k limit is going to be appealing for some, and if Amazon's matching speed is an improvement over Apple's, that will also be a plus. Since the EO May, Apple's matching has been spotty for reasons they still haven't explained - sometimes it's fast, sometimes it can take hours just to match one album. And I'm going to match my Jay-Z album first since this one's been broken for six months since January and Apple has not fixed it yet (and yes I have a case number for that).

 

So... what's everyone think of the new iPhone Cloud Player app update that won't let you play anything that's been uploaded since August 1st? Really stunned this isn't getting any discussion. It's being rightfully trashed on the App Store.

It works fine for older music that's been uploaded, but everything I've (and all the others I've encountered) uploaded since the big update to the system simply will not play unless there is a data connection. In other words, it's "stream only" now, despite what the write up on the app says. HUGE mistake. Gonna lose a lot of customers over this if they don't fix it right away.

The interesting thing here is that the previous app version worked fine with post-August 1st uploads. It's ONLY the update that won't allow them to work without streaming.

If you want to test it yourself, download something to the app that was uploaded prior to August 1st. Then upload something new, and then download it to your iPhone in the app, set it to Airplane mode, and try to play each. The old file will play fine, the new one will throw up an error about needing to be connected. Absolutely infuriating.

 

So let's say I don't want to use Amazon's cloud (because I don't). Today I can't seem to find a way to buy an MP3 from Aamazon and download it to my computer, like I always could in the past.

Is there a trick or a back door to be able to do this?

 

^ You can search for and download their Amazon MP3 Downloader for this purpose. If you've got older computer gear as I do, you'll have to contact them directly and explain fully, and they should then direct you to an older, and sort of hidden, version of AMP3D. And even then it's tricky; you have to physically drag and drop your purchased file into the app.

It's doable.

 

So now the only way to do this is download the Amazon MP3 Downloader? I never downloaded it in the past because I know how to add a song from my computer onto itunes and would rather do it myself.

 

Yeah, I think so. I seldom download anything there except party tunes, so I'm months between purchases. I was the same way; just downloaded and straight to iTunes. Last time I was unable, and it had everything to do with them going to their cloud and changing other protocols.

Progress.

 

Curses!!!!!