Amazon Launches Online Music Locker Ahead of Apple

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Amazon Music Locker

Apple has been rumored to be working on an online music locker of softs for some time now, but Amazon has beaten them to the punch after releasing its own online music storage service.

Comprising 5GB of free online storage, the service can actually be used to house any file type ala Dropbox. The magic happens though when users stream their online music to Android devices or other machines using a web browser. Users with larger libraries can purchase addition storage, though if they buy their songs via Amazon’s own music store then they won’t need to – tracks from Amazon get added to the locker without taking up storage space.

The delay in Apple’s online music storage service (and Google for that matter) has been put down to the music industry’s reluctance to sign a deal allowing the whole streaming thing to happen. Amazon clearly decided they didn’t care what the industry thought, and ploughed ahead anyway. Unsurprisingly Sony isn’t happy.

We are disappointed that Amazon decided to launch this service without licensing,

We’re fairly sure the word ‘disappointed’ wasn’t the one being banded around Sony HQ when the Amazon news landed!

The Amazon development could actually be a good thing for Google and Apple. Now the waters have already been tested the two tech giants could either sit back and wait for the fallout, or decide to close ranks with Amazon and join the fight by releasing their competing services. Would the record labels really want to take on Amazon, Google and Apple when at least two of those companies account for a huge number of online music sales already?

Common sense says not, but this is the music industry after all!

{via ComputerWorld}

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