Amazon Cloud Drive and Amazon Cloud Player lets people upload their collections to its servers and stream anywhere.
Amazon has stolen a march on Apple and Google by launching a cloud music service for PC, Mac and Android devices.
Amazon Cloud Drive, Amazon Cloud Player for Web and Amazon Cloud Player for Android all went live this morning in the US, and will let people upload MP3 and AAC files to Amazon's servers, to be streamed anywhere.
Users get 5GB of free storage, but if they buy an album from the Amazon MP3 digital music store, they'll be upgraded to 20GB, with further chunks of 20GB storage costing $20 a year.
The Android version of the new service is not a standalone app, but is instead built into the Amazon MP3 Android application, encouraging people to buy music that will then be added directly to their cloud storage. It works on tablets as well as smartphones. At the time of writing, there is no iPhone app, and the Cloud Player does not work on iPhone and iPad's Safari browser.
Amazon could face some awkward discussions with record labels and publishers over its new service, though. Its director of music Craig Pape tells the New York Times that "We don't need a licence to store music. The functionality is the same as an external hard drive".
Music rightsholders disagree, and have been locked in negotiations with Apple and Google over those companies' plans for a similar service, while major label EMI is embroiled in a court battle with US startup MP3tunes over its cloud locker service.
Advertisement
Add a new comment
You need to be logged in to post comments. If you do not have an account then please register.
Comments
0 comments
There are no comments yet, be the first to add one!