I think that this is intriguing... They are tying the cloud to the download store. This could create a lot of options in the future. Right now I am wait and see, but I just quit emusic after my annual plan expired. I wouldn't mind spending those funds elsewhere, Amazon...
One thing that Amazon could do to possibly beef up cd sales a bit is offer immediate downloads of a purchased cd. That doesn't seem like the kind of thing the record companies would object to, and I bet that many cd purchasers are ripping them upon arrival. But perhaps it's a good idea with too little market impact to bother with.
It happens occasionally. The last Bruce Cockburn album-but-two I got instant streaming when I ordered the CD at Amazon. And it happens on some other sites - I the recent Over the Rhine album had download with CD purchase. Just doesn't seem to be catching in system-wide.
Yeah, Gp, I was familiar with one-off situations like you mention, but with Amazon being the one big digital retailer that also sells hardcopies, it seems like a pretty easy value-add to throw into the mix with relatively little overhead, particularly with their cloud push.
Has anyone his own cloudhosting? What experiences do you have? I'm thinking about getting cloudhosting in the near future. Has anyone experiences with this host?
@ewebb No experience with them but $4/mo can't be beat for the shared hosting and the VPS looks solid by their offering Debian rather than a CentOS that is 4 versions behind like most VPS providers. For myself, I'm using 1&1's Business plan for my personal sites (LAMP) and I use EC2 extensively for work and consulting.
I am scanning my media files into the new Verizon media manager software and figured it would be a while before it finishes so I thought I would peek in to see what you folks were up to and lo and behold I find this thread.
I finally upgraded from my Flintstone era flip phone to the new HTC Thunderbolt (yeah its a badass but there's plenty of hype too) but it came with this cloud thing.
I am paying Verizon something like $2.99 a month for 25 GB of cloud space.
This is definitely a test drive and I probably wouldn't be doing this if it hadn't been crammed into the package before I noticed they had slipped it in.
But I am intrigued by the concept.
So help an old geezer out and tell me what I am doing. Is this a good deal?
What happens when I buy new music, is it supposed to automatically sync or do I have to keep my new purchases segregated until uploaded.
What is pro and con of using Verizon instead of Amazon
Are they going to string me along for cheap to get me strung out and then gank me on the price once I am hooked?
Plong42 - I wish they would allow for past purchases to go into their cloud as well.
I'm new to the Amazon cloud, but I thought that's what the 'upload' button did. I accidentally clicked on 'upload' recently without specifying a certain CD and it started searching all my music files for 'eligible' music to upload to the cloud. Not sure what consitutes 'eligible' but it was bringing up a LOT of music. I cancelled the command, so didn't find out what that was all about.
Hmm. The techdirt article could be clearer. Reading between the lines it seems like maybe what is at stake is whether (a) the cloud locker consists of as many copies of a song as users have uploaded, with each then listening to the copy they created (=storage) or (b) the cloud locker consists of one copy of the song that is streamed on demand to any user who conceptually "uploaded" it, i.e. obtained right of access (=broadcasting); these two scenarios could obviously be seen as not quite the same instance of a user playing their own music. I can sort of see why BMI would think that would need clarifying (which is not the same as agreeing with BMI or agreeing that public performance is the right category) - looks like another case of existing categories fighting a losing battle to define what is happening when people use a new technology.
BMI is arguing against storage efficiencies because the rest of these lawyer** heavy organizations they are utterly clueless about technology and just want to latch on like a tick and drink. Times have changed and the concepts used for physical media do not necessarily apply for digital, if you need any other indication look at the engineering and legal asshattery that is Zediva.
** No offense meant towards Craig and his legal brethren amongst us.
No offense taken, but I will correct you slightly. BMI is arguing against storage efficiencies because they themselves are clueless and they are paying their attorneys to come with an argument, any argument, to fight it.
@kez - Just to clarify, you can definitely upload previous purchases to the Cloud. What other users were lamenting was that past purchases cannot simply be added to the Cloud directly from Amazon and not count toward your storage limit like new purchases. Personally I'm thinking of "re-purchasing" all of the freebies that are still available so that I can delete them from my local machine for now and peruse them at my leisure.
Apple's new cloud service will "scan customers' digital music libraries in iTunes and quickly mirror their collections on its own servers," sources told Businessweek. If a track is not available on iTunes, it will need to be uploaded. But this feature alone will significantly reduce the amount of time the average user needs to set up their music locker.
'Sposed to launch next week. Not sure I really want my collection mirrored on Apple's servers. No, pretty sure I don't.
If I'm using itunes, is my collection already mirrorred?
No. If you've got genius turned on, your library database is on their servers, but not the actual library content.
@Kez "it started searching all my music files for 'eligible' music to upload to the cloud. "
I downladed the uploader, and it scanned my iTunes library and told me I have 22K worth of songs to upload, and a handful of songs which were not available (DRM stuff bought from iTunes many years ago). I uploaded a few items which I had purchased from Amazon, and it appears they do count towards my 20GB Cloud.
After all these years grinding in the space I've come to the conclusion that "Cloud" is such a hilariously meaningless word to describe a myriad of inter-related services (SaaS, PaaS, IaaS) that no journalist/pundit ever really talks about.
If you want all the benefits of iTunes in the Cloud for music you havent purchased from iTunes, iTunes Match is the perfect solution. It lets you store your entire collection, including music youve ripped from CDs or purchased somewhere other than iTunes. For just $24.99 a year. *2
Heres how it works: iTunes determines which songs in your collection are available in the iTunes Store. Any music with a match is automatically added to your iCloud library for you to listen to anytime, on any device. Since there are more than 18 million songs in the iTunes Store, most of your music is probably already in iCloud. All you have to upload is what iTunes cant match. Which is much faster than starting from scratch. And all the music iTunes matches plays back at 256-Kbps iTunes Plus quality even if your original copy was of lower quality.
*2 Requires iOS 5 on iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPod touch (3rd and 4th generation), iPad, or iPad 2, or a Mac computer with OS X Lion or a PC with Windows Vista or Windows 7 (Outlook 2007 or 2010 recommended). Limit 25,000 songs. iTunes purchases do not count against limit.
I find this somewhat tempting. But can I download stuff or just listen?
Comments
I finally upgraded from my Flintstone era flip phone to the new HTC Thunderbolt (yeah its a badass but there's plenty of hype too) but it came with this cloud thing.
I am paying Verizon something like $2.99 a month for 25 GB of cloud space.
This is definitely a test drive and I probably wouldn't be doing this if it hadn't been crammed into the package before I noticed they had slipped it in.
But I am intrigued by the concept.
So help an old geezer out and tell me what I am doing. Is this a good deal?
What happens when I buy new music, is it supposed to automatically sync or do I have to keep my new purchases segregated until uploaded.
What is pro and con of using Verizon instead of Amazon
Are they going to string me along for cheap to get me strung out and then gank me on the price once I am hooked?
etc etc etc
I'm new to the Amazon cloud, but I thought that's what the 'upload' button did. I accidentally clicked on 'upload' recently without specifying a certain CD and it started searching all my music files for 'eligible' music to upload to the cloud. Not sure what consitutes 'eligible' but it was bringing up a LOT of music. I cancelled the command, so didn't find out what that was all about.
** No offense meant towards Craig and his legal brethren amongst us.
Craig
Craig
'Sposed to launch next week. Not sure I really want my collection mirrored on Apple's servers. No, pretty sure I don't.
If I'm using itunes, is my collection already mirrorred? When the cloud comes out will it be automatic? Will it be free?
If I'm using itunes, is my collection already mirrorred?
No. If you've got genius turned on, your library database is on their servers, but not the actual library content.
I downladed the uploader, and it scanned my iTunes library and told me I have 22K worth of songs to upload, and a handful of songs which were not available (DRM stuff bought from iTunes many years ago). I uploaded a few items which I had purchased from Amazon, and it appears they do count towards my 20GB Cloud.
"Cloud" is the new "Bubble."
It all makes sense now.
Craig
Craig
/curmudgeon
iTunes Match
I find this somewhat tempting. But can I download stuff or just listen?