Slashdot Mirror
Amazon Releases Cloud-Based Music Service
c0lo writes "Right after rumors that Google was preparing to take on iTunes service with a digital music store of its own, Amazon has announced that it's entering the fight with a cloud-based music service of its own. From the article: 'Amazon Cloud Drive is a "personal disk drive in the cloud," while Amazon Cloud Player is, well, a Web-based music player. That's right--Amazon Cloud Drive will be something like Google's rumored digital music locker, a cloud-based storage system for all of your tunes.'"
Because if Amazon doesn't think the music studios are going to push back *HARD* on this, their heads are in the cloud. Here's a relevant quote:
"We are disappointed that the locker service that Amazon is proposing is unlicensed by Sony Music," a spokeswoman for Sony Corp.'s Sony Music Entertainment told the Journal.
Considering that Sony will sue people who even *talk* about putting their IP on the web, you think they're just going to sit back and watch while you allow everyone and his brother to put all their ripped Sony CD's on a web accessible service?
All I can say is that Amazon (and Google and Apple if they intend to follow up with their rumored similar services) had better lawyer up.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I'm always distrustful of a large companies managing my music collection. What happens when they can't make a profit and shut the service down? At best I have to deal with retrieving my media, at worst I could potentially lose access to everything.
Most folks who read slashdot probably have all of the pieces they need to just build this service themselves. Broadband connected computer, iPhone or Android device, 3G or WiFi connection to the remote device or computer.
If you have a media server at home or just a computer running Windows, OSX or Linux why not consider running Subsonic (http://www.subsonic.org)? Using subsonic I can stream my media to any computer using the in browser player and I with a client for my iPhone (isubms) I can stream to my iPhone over 3G or Wifi.
I've been using this as my own personal Pandora radio in the car and it works great. The nice part about the client app for my iPhone is it can cache content for when I don't have 3G coverage.
The total cost for this project was about $20 bucks since I was already paying for broadband and 3G cellphone service. I bought the $10 euro streaming license for subsonic and the $4.99 iPhone app. If you have an Android phone your costs are even cheaper as I believe there is a free client app for Android devices.
This is the solution I've been looking for... For years!
I know I sound like an infomercial but no longer having to remember to sync my device and having my entire music collection at my finger tips where ever I am is awesome.