MusicAlly.com
Amazonâs launch this week of its Cloud Drive and Cloud Player has ruffled rightsholder feathers, but according to the Wall Street Journal, Amazon is âaggressively courtingâ the major labels to get licensing deals, with the aim of âminimising bad bloodâ over this weekâs launch.
The WSJ also suggests that what Amazon is hoping to do is get licences that will allow it to scan and match usersâ music collections, giving them access to songs that they own without having to actually upload them. The article also suggests that the serviceâs ability to let up to five people to listen to a song at the same time is drawing rightsholder scrutiny, while also pinpointing publisher anger at the launch. âThis is just another land grab,â says Sony/ATV Music Publishing chairman Martin Bandier. âI canât make it any plainer than that. Itâs really disrespectful, and of course we are considering all of our options.â
Meanwhile, mSpot has provided a quick response by changing its own service to match Amazonâs offering. mSpot now gives users 5GB of storage for free, up from its previous 2GB. But CEO Daren Tsui thinks the battle will be fought on other features. âWe think we have a better service than storage lockers with a simple âplayerâ UI â and in order to remove any trial barriers weâre going to offer 5 GB free storage,â he says in a statement. âGoing forward, we expect that the market for storage will be very commoditized and price-driven; but unique music services like mSpot will appeal more to music listeners looking for a complete experience â especially on the mobile. The music locker is only one component of mSpot Music â which is actually a complete cloud music service that will soon include a unique music discovery offering that builds on everything weâve learned from our customers over the last year.â
March 31, 2011
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