Amazon Insists No Licenses Needed For Cloud Player, Google Thinking Of Skipping Licenses As Well

from the floodgates,-openning dept

When Amazon launched its cloud music streaming service a few weeks ago, the big question concerned whether or not it needed licenses to do so. It certainly did not have them. And there's a strong argument that it doesn't need them. After all, it was just letting people take music files they already had, and allowing them to store and stream them from the internet. Why should it require an extra license to let people listen to music they already have? However, we did worry that Amazon would simply cave in, rather than fight, as it wanted to remain on good terms with the record labels.

Perhaps that's not the case, however. Amazon has sent a letter to the record labels, once again reiterating that it does not believe it needs licenses. On top of that, it points out that, so far, the Cloud Drive appears to be driving more sales of MP3s.

Cloud Drive is a general online storage service for all digital files, not unlike Google Docs, Microsoft SkyDrive and any number of other internet file back-up services. It’s your external hard-drive in the cloud. It requires a license from content owners no more than those other internet file back-up services do and no more than makers of external hard drives for PCs do.

Cloud Player is a media management and play-back application not unlike Windows Media Player and any number of other media management applications that let customers manage and play their music. It requires a license from content owners no more than those applications do.

It really is that simple.

Nice to see Amazon taking a stand here. Hopefully it keeps up.

At the same time, it appears that Google may be inspired by Amazon's decision here to stand up against the idea that licenses are needed for digital lockers. While it had been trying to negotiate licenses, rumors are coming out that it's fed up with ridiculous demands from the labels and ready to follow Amazon's lead in just offering up the service without any licenses.

Not surprisingly, the report names Warner Music as being the party that has been the worst to deal with in these negotiations. That fits with what we've heard from other negotiations, where Warner Music puts absolutely ridiculous deal terms on the table and refuses to budge. It would be nice if Google follows Amazon's lead and calls the labels' bluff on the idea that licenses are needed for this kind of service.

Filed Under: cloud, copyright, licenses
Companies: amazon, google

Amazon Launches Digital Music Locker, Even As Legality Is Still In Question

from the did-they-obtain-licenses? dept

Well, this could get interesting. While there are already a few digital music lockers on the market -- including services like MP3Tunes and MeCanto -- there's been plenty of talk over the past few months about the "big players" entering the market. Most of the focus has been on both Apple (which bought and shut down the music locker service Lala) and Google, but Amazon beat both companies to the starting line and launched its service a few hours ago.

The question that's most interesting to me is whether or not it's paying for licenses, and at this point, it's unclear. We've seen, for example, that the record labels are not happy about these services, with EMI in a legal fight with MP3Tunes. On top of that record labels are demanding additional fees and licenses, even though these lockers only allow people to store and stream music they already have. Whether or not Amazon paid any licenses is unclear. The News.com article linked above says "as of last week the online retailer giant had not obtained all the necessary licenses, but that Amazon might announce the service before all the negotiations were complete."

But here's my question: what necessary licenses? Why should anyone else have to pay a license to let me store and stream my own music? Update: Hypebot has more, saying that Amazon doesn't believe it needs licenses, and some of the labels (but not all) are upset. Specifically, Warner Music is pissed and is contemplating legal action, but other labels aren't quite as upset.

As for Amazon's actual service, I have no idea if it's compelling, but I will say it's rather silly and pointless that they're making me reupload music. I already have an Amazon S3 account which (among other things) I use to backup all of my (yes, legal and authorized) music. What would be great is if I could just point this new Amazon Cloud Player at my existing music that is already stored on Amazon's servers, and then stream it from there. But that does not appear to be an option. Instead, I would need to reload all of it (and since I have a lot more than 5 gigs of music, I'd have to pay multiple times for it. And, with anyone else launching a similar service, I'd probably have to upload it again and again.

Let's be honest here: that's not really a cloud service. A true cloud service would let me store my music wherever I wanted, and then point whatever streaming player I wanted at it... But, of course, I'm sure the record labels would want another bunch of licenses paid up in full before anything like that is ever allowed.

Filed Under: cloud, digital lockers, music, streaming
Companies: amazon, apple, google, mp3tunes

Apple Trash Talking Spotify As It Prepares Its Competitor

from the all's-fair-in-love-and-competing-with-steve-jobs dept

There's yet another rumor going around that Apple is getting ready to launch a subscription music service. That's been rumored for ages, and it would be surprising if the company didn't do it. In fact, many were surprised that after Apple shut down music locker Lala that it didn't immediately launch a cloud based subscription offering. But, perhaps more interesting, is the fact that Apple has also been spending time trash-talking Spotify to music industry execs. We had mentioned, when Apple shut down Lala, that it would be a good time for Spotify to figure out how to launch in the US. The company has been trying for quite some time now, and the record label demands are basically impossible to meet. And it sounds like Apple is encouraging that. As Greg Sandoval reports:

In meetings in Los Angeles recently, Apple executives told their music industry counterparts that they had serious doubts about whether Spotify's business model could ever generate significant revenues or profits, according to two sources with knowledge of the discussions.

But Apple executives worried about the effects of a free music service might have on the rest of the market. They noted that it's tough to sell something that someone else is giving away, the sources said. One industry insider said it is only logical that if Spotify were allowed to launch a free-music service here, at a time when Nielsen recently reported that the growth of digital sales has flattened out, it could eat into the businesses of proven revenue-producers like Apple and Amazon.

Ah, the amazing ridiculousness of confused short-term thinking. While I also have questions about Spotify's ability to generate significant revenues long-term, the recording industry is making a huge mistake if it buys into the idea that Spotify is likely to cannibalize digital sales. If you look at reports in places where Spotify is widely available, such as Sweden and the UK, the reports suggest that what Spotify actually cannibalizes is unauthorized downloading. Yes, there are a bunch of reports that suggest Spotify gets people away from The Pirate Bay and into a system that at least gets the labels some money.

Filed Under: cloud, music, streaming
Companies: apple, spotify

Apple Bought Lala To Shut It Down?

from the can't-have-competition... dept

I've been a pretty harsh critic of Lala over the years. The company was long on hype and short on substance with its ever changing business model. First it was a CD swapping service. Then it was a free streaming music service. Then it was an iTunes-in-the-cloud. Still, the final product was decent, and with a bit of work could take on Spotify in the market. When Apple swooped in and bought Lala late last year, many people got excited over the possibility of Apple creating its own streaming music service that really could be seamless.

Instead, it looks like Apple bought Lala to shut it down. Just five months or so after purchasing it, Apple has announced that Lala will be closing at the end of May, pissing off lots of users. Now, it's entirely possible (or even likely) that Apple is timing the shutdown with a launch of a totally new streaming iTunes-in-the-cloud type service, but it does seem weird to buy a company and shut it down so quickly, and raises questions of whether or not the purchase was really about building out Apple's offerings, or about shutting down a nascent competitor just before Apple launched its own version. Also, if the plan is to launch its own version, why "shut down" Lala? Why not just transfer them over to the new service?

In the meantime, Spotify still hasn't launched in the US, but you would think that now might be a good time to step in and sign up disgruntled Lala listeners -- before Apple really enters the market...

Filed Under: cloud, itunes, lala, music, streaming
Companies: apple, lala, spotify

As Expected, Labels Now Want To Use Privacy-Reducing Watermarks As 'Cloud DRM'

from the good-luck-with-that dept

For quite some time now, the record labels have believed that if they couldn't put old school copy protection on music files, the "next best thing" would be watermarks. This idea started showing up more than five years ago and when iTunes finally went DRM free, we were among those who pointed out that the files still contained identifying watermarks, in that the files themselves included info on who purchased the files. Two years ago we pointed out how these were a serious problem from a privacy perspective and it was best not to go down that road.

Surprise, surprise. The industry didn't listen.

As a bunch of you are submitting, with streaming/cloud music suddenly becoming popular, apparently the record labels are demanding that companies use such watermarks as a new type of privacy-invading DRM:

The labels, say our source, are demanding that a user can only stream music that is watermarked to their username. Change the username, or try to stream music that you've ripped from a CD, and those songs won't play.

While a bunch of people submitting this seem to think the watermarking is new, it's not. That part of the story has been known for years. But what is new (if not surprising) is that the labels are trying to lock up streaming services by using the watermarks as a weak form of DRM. Of course, like any form of DRM it won't work. Instead, it will annoy legitimate users who are stopped from listening to music they legally obtained the rights to. And, on top of that, it will put their privacy at risk. And for what purpose?

New decade. Same story.

Filed Under: cloud, drm, privacy, watermarks

Do You Have Any Legal Right To Privacy For Information Stored Online?

from the there's-a-legal-fight-brewing dept

A year and a half ago, we had an interesting discussion here about whether or not the Fourth Amendment and your right to privacy extended to information you stored online via any sort of "cloud" service. The arguments basically fell into two camps, with some citing the "third party doctrine," which basically says that once you gave up info to a third party, you no longer have any right to expect it to be kept private. This argument came from a lawsuit (Smith v. Maryland) that basically said phone numbers you dialed were not "secret" because you were supplying them to the phone company. Of course, the other side of that argument is that it's ridiculous to extend this concept to online storage, noting that the Supreme Court had recognized in the Katz case (about wiretapping public pay phones) that the Fourth Amendment applies to "people, not places."

It looks like this debate is kicking off again, with a discussion on News.com over whether or not the Fourth Amendment covers information stored in "the cloud." It tackles some of the same ground that we covered a while back, but points to a recent law review paper on this topic (pdf) by David A. Couillard.

The paper does a good job separating out the thinking here, and explaining why the Fourth Amendment absolutely should apply to information you store online. As it notes, while the Smith case said that phone numbers dialed might not be private, that did not extend to the contents of the phone call itself. And that's key. The reason that the phone company gets the phone numbers dialed is because that information is key to it delivering its service of connecting the phone call. So you can make a reasonable argument that while such information (the information needed to initiate a service) might not be subject to privacy protection, everything else communicated or stored via that service still deserves those protections.

The issue is that right now we really don't know how the courts feel about this -- and you can bet this is going to become an issue that shows up in the court system before too long. Hopefully, the courts will recognize that any "third party doctrine" when it comes to the Fourth Amendment is limited to a very narrow subset of information provided for a particular purpose, rather than all information stored on third party servers.

Filed Under: cloud, fourth amendment, information, privacy, storage

Crowdsourced, Cloud-Based Anti-Virus? Lots Of Buzzwords, But How Does It Work?

from the who-detects-what-now? dept

We've seen plenty of crowdsourced anti-spam apps, but Jesse points us to a company called Immunet that claims to be launching a free "cloud-based, collaborative anti-virus" solution. The idea is that people install it, and as soon as anyone detects a virus problem, that info is shared with all of the other users, thereby (in theory) working much faster than today's brand-name anti-virus products. However, I have to admit I can't figure out how this works. For anti-spam stuff it makes sense -- since anyone can recognize spam. But how can it work for anti-virus? Who's determining what the actual virus is? How is it protected against false positives? None of that's clear. I went through the company's website, and it seems to just skip right over the question of actually detecting the virus. It makes fun of the established anti-virus providers for taking too long in examining suspected viruses in their lab, but never explains how the detection occurs otherwise. In fact, about the only thing I can figure out from the company's own language is that it's going to simply use the virus definitions found in those other products installed on people's computers. If that's true, then it won't actually be any better or faster than those companies it was making fun of earlier. The whole thing sounds full of buzzwords and hype, but appears to have little substance.

Filed Under: anti-virus, buzzwords, cloud, crowd sourced