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Amazon Matches iTunes Match With New 'Audio Upgrade' Feature
New submitter bostonidealist writes "Just after the July 6th 1-year anniversary of its unlimited music storage promotion (and presumably after early subscribers have all renewed their annual subscriptions), Amazon.com has changed the way its Cloud Player and Cloud Drive services work. Starting today, music uploaded to a Cloud Drive will count against its owner's Cloud Drive quota and will not be accessible through Cloud Player. Further, music files previously uploaded to Cloud Player or Cloud Drive are being automatically converted to 256 Kbps audio whenever Amazon 'has the rights to do so' and new audio files uploaded to Cloud Player will automatically be checked against Amazon's music database in iTunes Match-like fashion. One of the appeals of Amazon's Cloud Player service up to this point has been that users could pay a flat fee and store an unlimited number of their own music files (with their own tags, artwork, and audio data intact). Now, Amazon is automatically replacing users' previously uploaded data with its own, without allowing users to opt in/out."
> Now, Amazon is automatically replacing users' previously uploaded data with its own, without allowing users to opt in/out
*Exactly* why cloud services are for retards only. You would have to be a complete moron to trust a third party with your personal data. A complete and utter moron.
The point of forcibly replacing your music with a good-quality one is so they can massively reduce storage. Now they just need one copy of each song.
Which makes it doubly bizarre they're now counting it against your cloud storage -- it's not even stored in your "piece" -- all that's stored are a few bytes of an ID pointing into their song database.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
When I try to play them, iTunes complaints about missing files. I wonder, how do I remove these entries from my library without going through it one by one?
I don't know if there's a better way than this, but do command-I to bring up the info screen, then keep spamming the next button. I don't recall if each missing file brings up the delete dialog, or if it just marks them in the window with an "info" icon that you can delete later. This doesn't happen often, so I don't get much chance to learn the "right" way to fix it.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
upload pirated music get clean copies .. ;D
So, can I upload my music, have it upgraded and tagged by Amazon, then download the improved MP3s and quit the service?
See what I did to the titel there? Yep, I added a "NOT" negating it.
Amazon being unfair does not mean that cloud technology is unfair just that there is no "unlimited storage for free" solution.
Every service you obtain from someone comes with it's cost. My personal opinion is that - given you are capable of handling
the complexity - you just do it yourself and incur the, usually decent pricetag in favor of privacy/certainty.
Using a cloud infrastructure provider (like aws) you can cloudify all your assets without a problem. Of course certainty (and
often paranoia) dictates that you at least manage to have secured backups of your static data, like, images, video, music and
db dumps on the ground.
Of course all the above takes for granted that you are not an idiot and actually can live with your own custom cloud.
-- no sig today
Can you upload higher bitrates already? I would be pissed at them converting my audio if I had taken the time to upload FLAC copies, for example. Or even 320kbit MP3 that one usually does if they are ripping CDs.
According to the article: "Like iTunes Match, Amazonâ(TM)s Cloud Player keeps copies of songs at 256 kilobytes per second, even if the original version was lower-fidelity."
Who would want 256 kilobyte per second, which turns a normal CD into more than a Gigabyte?
As are you, me, and every other human walking on or orbiting above this planet. You, however, have a "Dumb-Ass" prefix.
--- Keep the choice with the user..
...it's like putting make-up on a pig, really. No thanks, Amazon.
Welcome to the cloud! Where your data is our data.
As "the cloud" is getting more traction, expect worse things to happen. We are still in the acceptance phase.
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
I have recently started using Mac computers and I have to say I am in love. iTunes is absolutely fantastic music player too, and store for that matter. It's hard to match the catalog iTunes has - it has even the less known kpop artists I love to listen.
That being said, I have some music files in my library that no longer exist. When I try to play them, iTunes complaints about missing files. I wonder, how do I remove these entries from my library without going through it one by one? Thanks for the answers.
I love Apple.
Due to your love of Apple, all of your iTunes issues can be easily resolved. Just spend your usual hour on the tower of power followed by a golden shower, and the answer will be revealed...
The point of forcibly replacing your music with a good-quality one is so they can massively reduce storage. Now they just need one copy of each song.
Which makes it doubly bizarre they're now counting it against your cloud storage -- it's not even stored in your "piece" -- all that's stored are a few bytes of an ID pointing into their song database.
This is the cloud equivalent of the "?????" step between the "Charge money for storage space" step and the "Profit" step.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
There may be all sorts of problems down the line with people who like music that isn't officially licensed in their country.
This is very much like Amazon in everything - you have no rights, only the obligation to pay them and have them do pretty much what they want with your data. There is no effective SLA, and if you don't like what they do only recourse is trying to win over a megacorp in court.
So ... You use their crap ? Blame yourself!
Excuse me my ignorance, but why is this supposed press release hosted on corporate-ir.net (that doesn't even appear to have a root index file) instead of amazon.com? A quick google search shows that there are plenty of such press releases from lots of different companies hosted on that site; however, I am still not sure if this stuff is legitimate.
What about Amazon altering your music files without your permission?
Um, are you not aware that Itunes software is available for Windows, too. Now, I'm not a Windows fan. I'm just pointing out that Itunes software is now exclusively for Mac computers. This is your only point in your argument?...And yet, you conclude Apple is amazing? Your post must be joke.
I wonder how fuzzy the matching is? Will you suddenly end up with a different mix or remastered version of the song because it assumed they were the same?
I'm wondering if I could upload a shitty copy or even a a file of static with a title of the song I want, Amazon converts for me, and voila! I have a better or free copy of the song!
For example, create a file that's 3:14 seconds or whatever the song I want is, name the file "I was born this way", and my file of shit turns into a the song - courtesy of Amazon's service.
This could be an awesome bootleg service!
And also entertaining! Just wait until the RIAA gets wind and we'll have the entertainment of legal action between very lawyered up corporations!
Woo Hoo! Win for everybody!
While a cloud service provider isn't necessarily like Amazon, this is a prime example of why the cloud can't be trusted: you are at the mercy of the service provider, and if they alter the deal you can only pray they don't alter it further.
So let's say someone recorded a murder on their cell phone's voice memo recorder. You hear the murder but there's a strong song playing in the background. Amazon checks the file and replaces it with the plain-vanilla copy. Is that a felony called obstruction of justice?
Let's say someone's wife/daughter/whoever sang along with a song before she died...and let's say that recording is the widower/father's most treasured thing. Will Amazon automatically delete that file?
I had a car wreck that was recorded by my in-car camera a few years ago. The audio track was 99% the radio playing a popular song, plus a few crashes/bangs. If Amazon had replaced the audio track on that video, it would have destroyed valuable evidence that was worth thousands of dollars. (right now, as far as I can tell, Amazon is not editing videos, but is replacing sound files.)
Will this replace one-of-a-kind concert recordings with generic crap? Will there only be one copy of each of Jimi Hendrix songs?
Will this replace one-of-a-kind outtakes with mainstream garage?
I think Amzon is trying to save disk space while allowing the recording industry to edit their previous work whenever they wish. They know the downsides to this, and are both civily liable and criminally culpable for their actions.
RMS was right again.
How many man-years wasted ripping & uploading to the cloud?
Cloud computing is nothing but a scam.
I just buy the CD, rip it myself, put the CD on a shelf as it's own backup, copy the rips onto a portable hard disk and put the hard disk in my coat pocket.
I can access my music anywhere, not just where there's an Internet connection.
Windows 10 is great - I used it to download Linux.
Amazon also reduced pricing for the service yesterday, which may be good for future subscribers, but is really annoying for those who already had subscriptions and just renewed for more money. Anyone who spent several weeks uploading music files one year ago likely didn't want to let their subscription lapse and have to repeat the entire process. Amazon waited a couple of weeks until everyone up for renewal was billed for a new year, then, less than a month later, they fundamentally changed the service's functionality and lowered the pricing.
I completely understand that Amazon's terms and conditions for the service give them the right to do this, and I also expect that early adopters often pay more for goods and services as prices drop. However, it's clear that Amazon was being quite coy here. They also issued an iPhone cloud player app shortly before "unlimited music" subscribers had to decide whether to renew, incentivizing re-subscribing.
It's clear that the new service is great for Amazon, as it allows them to de-duplicate their data and significantly reduces their bandwidth costs. It also may be a good thing for many customers who can get sanitized versions of their music files. As my original post mentioned, however, some users of the service saw the appeal of uploading and unlimited number of their personal music files (e.g., with meticulously edited album artwork, tags, and the exact compression they wanted). Without notice, Amazon is essentially replacing all these files for paid subscribers with different files, which sets a really bad precedent not just for music, but for cloud storage services in general. While I'm sure some users prefer the new functionality, others don't and it would have been better to allow users to opt in/out.
The other big story here is that at least some of the labels seem to have offered Amazon similar terms to Apple, showing that Apple's agreement for Match is not exclusive. In Netflix v. Amazon (video streaming) and Apple v. Amazon (music stores/matching), Big Content seems reluctant to let any one player dominate.
Regarding the press release: yes, it's official, it's linked from Amazon's more recognizable Amazon.com domain; for whatever reason, they post their press releases on a different domain.
You are at the mercy of who you choose for the service provider. Which, as justforgetme pointed out, can be yourself. So no, this isn't a "cloud issue" as much as this is an "amazon issue" as everyone has stated. What's to stop people from hosting things themselves? Nothing.
I uploaded half of my music collection to Google Play's Music service, merely so I can stream music to me away from home on other peoples networks. I still have all my music on my RAID 5 NAS. I stream from Google so my home's Comcast network caps avoid hitting the limit, because I stream a lot of video from Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Video ($39.5 a year if you share your Prime account with a family member).
That's right, be old school and have a HD in your pocket which you can drop and lose all your shit (because we know you don't have backups) and lose the cost of the device itself.
A lot of people sneered at Opera Unite, calling it bloat.
To this day this derision of Unite by various people still bugs me, because under Unite, you could have an instant server on any computer that could run Unite. It was simple and drool proof. You didn't even need dyndns services. No more rolling your own with Apache or some other web sever. You could have it up and running within 3 minutes of downloading Opera. Maybe even less if you typed fast.
Rip your music from CD and file away your CD just like in your scenario, then anywhere on the Earth, you could listen to your streaming media player or access the music files directly. Unite gave you the ability to do ad-hoc file serving, www, chat, etc, through plugins and made it as easy as falling off a log. Unite involved none of this third-party cloud services bullshit. You basically created your own "cloud" with Opera Unite, and the Opera Unite servers simply pointed to your own machine(s).
Unite resurrected the two-way-street that was the Internet before the media companies turned it into a media-consumption tool.
But as of Opera 12, all this is all gone because it wasn't adopted as Opera had hoped, which is a shame, because this was a brilliant resource. I don't see any true replacements for it. Sure, I can roll my own, but it's not the same instant gratification and configuring separate services is not something I can recommend to complete newbies.
--
BMO
I will not ever pay or use cloud services for anything important unless the files are encrypted on my end.
Mod me up/Mod me down: I wont frown as I've no crown
What part of my sentence did you misread?
-- no sig today
In common usage, the term "cloud" refers to an alternative to setting up servers yourself, in which somebody else maintains all the infrastructure for you so that you don't have to. In principle, you could become a cloud provider, but then other people would presumably be at your mercy. Either way, a private server with a single user is not generally considered to be a cloud. It is just a private server.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Pray I don't alter your data any further.
The following is from the press release:
Cloud Player is available in a Free tier and a Premium tier. Cloud Player Free customers can store all MP3 music purchased at Amazon, plus import up to 250 songs from their PC or Mac to Cloud Player, all at no charge. Cloud Player Premium customers can import and store up to 250,000 songs in Cloud Player for an annual fee of $24.99. Amazon-purchased MP3s (including all previous purchases) do not count against the 250 or 250,000-song limits and will be added to both Free and Premium Cloud Player libraries at no charge.
Just spend your usual hour on the tower of power followed by a golden shower, and the answer [lyricsfreak.com] will be revealed...
Don't you DARE use the late, great FZ to spread your ignorant Apple-Hate.
I hope you get festering sores.
DISCLAIMER: this is anecdotal evidence against Amazon. Just because they've pissed me off doesn't mean it's a general trend... yet.
I am really starting to dislike Amazon. Two major events:
Event 1: Amazon somehow auto-enrolled me in Amazon Prime. I know how to use computers and have bought and sold on Amazon for something like 9 years now. I am fairly sure I didn't accidentally enroll. This must be so common that if you cancel before you've used the service at all, you get a refund no questions asked. If this were an isolated incident of Amazon behaving badly, I might overlook it. But, I think it's something shadier, something decidedly more AOL-ish.
Event 2: The used "new" Kindle debacle. My girlfriend got a kindle for Christmas. It was sealed in Amazon's plain brown packaging (the kind that cannot be opened and reclosed without obviously having been opened). The kindle itself had a large gash down the e-ink screen. The factory screen cover packaging was extremely dirty. OK, so manufacturing glitch of some sort, these things happen, no biggie. Here's where it gets really bad. Amazon refused to merely replace the device at their cost. A) They made us return it for Amazon credit and buy a new one. Her mother had used a $15 coupon to buy the kindle. So, she had to spend an extra $15 to buy the kindle again... for Amazon's defective unit. We were promised by the CS that this would not happen before the fact. After the fact, they denied it (eventually we gave up). On top of that, we were living out of the country at the time, so she had to ship the kindle back to Amazon independently (if we were in the US, for example, Amazon would send a shipping label). We were told we'd be reimbursed for shipping. Guess how we were reimbursed? Amazon credit. Again, we made sure that this would not happen before the fact and were promised it wouldn't. After the fact, deny deny deny. So, fuck Amazon, fuck them in the eye. They have become seriously shady.
Too often I see people using Youtube or Pandora to play music they already own just because they forgot to sync it to their phone.
I have been buying MP3s from Amazon for some time, I just ordered some CDs instead yesterday. Used CDs are cheaper than MP3 albums in many cases, including shipping, and they have better quality (assuming no defects, still to be determined) -- I'll just rip them to FLAC. So this is only an "upgrade" for people who pirated music or ripped there CDs as 128k or 192k. Anyone ripping CDs in the last 5 years would be stupid to encode in anything but FLAC, unless they only need it on an MP3 player with limited storage. ... So I'm not saying I can hear the difference between 256k and uncompressed -- I can't -- but there may be future applications where the extra inaudible information is useful (maybe a current application is experimenting with DJ'ing and mixing songs). Why Amazon aren't providing uncompressed songs confuses me. They could even do 48kHz, which is superior to CD, and also 24 bit (I don't think it's possible to hear anything more than 16 bit, but again, there may be uses for it)
original copies of your uploaded songs will be available as well, take a look below:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200593970#pastpurchase
Audio Upgrade
For some songs and albums you previously imported to Cloud Player, Amazon may have rights to upgrade your music to high-quality 256 Kbps audio. We'll automatically begin upgrading the audio quality for previously imported files when you log in to Cloud Player; this process will only happen once and may take a few minutes to complete.
A pop-up message will display progress, and you can close this message at any time. Once complete, we'll display the number of songs that have been upgraded.
Music that's been upgraded can be found in the "Upgraded Audio" playlist. The "Upgraded Audio" playlist will only be available if songs are upgraded. Original copies of these Upgraded Audio files will remain accessible in Cloud Drive. Your Cloud Drive "Music" folder is now called "Archived Music."
Imported Music Upgrades
Music you import into Cloud Player in the future will also be automatically upgraded to high-quality 256 Kbps if Amazon has the rights to do so. This upgraded music will only appear in the Imported playlist and will not appear in the "Upgraded Audio" playlist.
Which is exactly correct.
The difference between private server and 3rd party hosted private server is nothing. Cloud is just a marketing phrase and still doesn't reflect anything that hasn't already existed for 5-10 years minimum.
> It's hard to match the catalog iTunes ha
It's pretty easy to find something that iTunes doesn't have without putting any real effort into it. It doesn't even require being into something exotic. Even pretty mundane stuff is missing.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
This is 2012. Forcing people to use a proprietary platform binary to use a pretty generic looking e-commerce site should be considered beyond absurd.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
I buy many MP3s from Amazon, but I don't use its Cloud. I do let it keep my bought MP3s as my backups though. I never upload anything.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Every service you obtain from someone comes with it's cost.
"it's" ? No, actually the correct word is : its.
You don't even know how to use an apostrophe correctly, so what makes you think anyone
with a brain is going to trust your opinion on technical matters ?
This actually turns out to be a real benefit for me. I ripped hundreds of albums over ten years ago into 96 and 128 bit mp3's, and lately I've been nagging myself to drag them out and re-rip them to a better sounding rate. This just did it all for me and I'm downloading the upgraded files now.
Thanks Amazon! You're the best! Apple wants me to pay for this, you gave it to me for freee.
Cool. Some other things You could have pointed out are that `titel` isn't even correct if you are speaking German (which I wasn't) and that `you just do it yourself and incur the, usually decent pricetag in favor of privacy/certainty.` introduces a semantic ambiguity that could have been avoided had I actually typed in the comma after the word `decent`.
Duh, grammar Nazis of late You disappoint me.
-- no sig today
iTunes and Quicktime work just fine on Mac OS, just like Windows Media Player works just fine on Windows.
If you're still managing your music by files and folders, it just means you still haven't grasped the power of metadata and smart playlists. This is 2012, not 1992.
I can't tell, is that sarcasm? Windows Media Player has been begging for an upgrade for the last three versions of Windows, and is considered an unholy abomination that sucks up waaaaay too many system resources while being incredibly ugly / unwieldy. There's a reason many Windows users immediately install WinAmp for playing songs, and VLC \ MPC for video: the authors of those programs got it right. When I am playing songs, I want something small but useful (and no, WMP in miniature mode doesn't count); when I am playing videos, I want something that will play anything I find on the web with minimal hassle (and no, WMP doesn't do that).
But I believe WMP does have an integrated browser to try and sell me things I don't want to buy. Yep, double-checked, it's still there.
I am John Hurt.
>>Amazon being unfair does not mean that cloud technology is unfair just that there is no "unlimited storage for free" solution.
99.9% of all governments having a history of genocide towards their own citizens does not mean there is no good government somewhere. Still I'd prefer not to trust any government rather than take the 999-to-1 odds that I will get screwed. Likewise I'd prefer not to trust any stranger with my data on their cloud, since the odds of screwage are way too high. (Also the same reason I don't jump off cliffs even though there is a 999-to-1 odd I might survive.)
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
I don't really care about the conversions because I can't hear the difference between the bitrates. What kind of bugs me is that Amazon took away any type of meaningful free option.
Looking at Google Play right now.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
Does Amazon reduce the quality when they stream the music to their mobile app? Or am I now paying twice as much to listen to each of my songs that was previously streamed at 128 and now comes across at 256? Seems like yet another place where end users are getting screwed with data plans with sad capacity limits and high dollar prices. The cloud is getting darker every day...
Never gets old.
http://archive.org/details/EbenMoglen-FreedomInTheCloud2010
This is not a problem with "the cloud" (which is defined by technology).
There may be a social issue involved in relying on a provider to continue a behavior which they haven't undertaken any binding obligation to continue, but that isn't really specific to the cloud. Nothing provides cloud providers from offering stron, enforceable agreements of what they will and won't do with your data. Its probably less common in consumer-oriented (and particularly free consumer-oriented) cloud services, but that's not about the cloud, its about TANSTAAFL.