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Amazon Cloud Player upsets Sony Music over streaming license, Amazon shrugs
In case you missed the news, last night Amazon gave us a little surprise by launching its free Cloud Player service, which lets you stream your music collection from the cloud to your computer or Android device. While this has no doubt put a smile on many faces (American ones only, for now), Sony Music isn't too happy about Amazon jumping the gun over licensing for streaming rights. The record label told Reuters that it's hoping Amazon "will reach a new license deal, but we're keeping all of our legal options open." Yikes. In retaliation, Amazon responded with the following statement to Ars Tehcnica: "Cloud Player is an application that lets customers manage and play their own music. It's like any number of existing media management applications. We do not need a license to make Cloud Player available. The functionality of saving MP3s to Cloud Drive is the same as if a customer were to save their music to an external hard drive or even iTunes." Of course, the bigger story here is that Amazon's free Cloud Player is going head-to-head with Sony's Music Unlimited streaming subscription service, which was pushed out last month after plenty of money talk with various record labels. Understandably, Sony isn't willing to let Amazon cut through the red tape here without a fight, and this may also affect similar music locker services like mSpot and MP3Tunes, albeit at a much smaller scale. In fact, Sony's already expressed its discomfort with those particular companies' mode of operation, so you can probably expect to see this tension boiling over to some form of legal action before long. Now that a big shot like Amazon's involved, it's almost inevitable. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Apple working on unlimited downloads of purchased iTunes music, setting MobileMe free?
You know all that rumor and speculation about Apple launching a subscription-based streaming music service? Forget it -- at least until the next rumor comes along. Bloomberg is citing three people with knowledge of private talks between Apple, Universal Music, Sony Music, and Warner Music to make purchased music more easily accessible to iTunes users. Two sources claim that an agreement could be announced by midyear. Contrary to popular speculation aroused by Apple's purchase of Lala, they're not talking about streaming music from Apple's new North Carolina data center scheduled to come online in the spring. According to Bloomberg's sources, Apple is instead, planning to offer unlimited downloads to any device linked to the same iTunes account. So, purchase a track on your iPhone and download it again for free to your iPad without having to go back and tether the mobile device to your PC or Mac for a sync. Hard disk crash? No worries, there's a permanent backup in the cloud. Of course, there's nothing preventing Apple from providing unlimited downloads in parallel with a streaming service except for the labels and artists who prefer the higher revenues paid out by download services. Then again, if it was left to them we'd still be buying our music on $15 CDs. Incidentally, one Bloomberg source was also caught blabbing about Apple's plans to overhaul the MobileMe service to store pictures, video, and other online content sometime this year. Better yet, it could drop from $99 per year to free -- something already reported by the Wall Street Journal a few weeks ago.
Spotify reportedly signs US deal with Sony
Just a week ago, we covered a New York Post story indicating that Spotify, the ad-supported or subscription based all-you-can-eat music streaming service, was about to sign a deal with Sony Music in the U.S. -- taking Spotify a step closer to the U.S. market. Now, according to MediaMemo, that deal has now gone through. Though both Spotify and Sony have declined to comment, it's reported that a deal -- similar in terms to Spotify's European music label deals -- has been reached. However, Spotify still needs to secure further agreements (or at least one big arrangement) with other music labels, to increase its catalogue, before it can begin offering a service in the U.S.. Spotify is facing some big hurdles, though. According to MediaMemo, the labels are anxious "...that Spotify's free streaming service will increase the decline of CD sales, which have been dropping for a decade, but still make up the majority of the labels' revenue. And, "...there is also muttering that the labels don't want to upset Apple, which sells tunes on a track-by-track basis via its iTunes store and dominates the market for digital music." However, last week The Post also reported that Spotify had the support of one other unnamed major music label. Though there seems to be an apprehension amongst U.S. music labels towards Spotify, perhaps we'll be hearing reports of another Spotify / major music label deal in the coming days. [Via Boy Genius]
Talay Robot will document your tweet, give it a soundtrack, Twitvid the results (video)
Tweet a message @talayrobot and something magical happens. An ST Robotics arm whirs to life inside Sony Music's London HQ and starts transcribing your words of wisdom unto a glamorously lit whiteboard -- in the finest handwriting font its designers could find! Best part is that the whole thing gets filmed and the video is sent back to you within a matter of minutes, equipped with an audio clip from Sony's Talay Riley. Yes, it's a promotional stunt, but it's also undeniably one of the coolest intersections of robotics and social networking we've yet seen. Skip past the break for some video examples or get tweeting and create your own.
iTunes Store to add enhanced liner notes, extra media to album purchases
Digital music purchases have been dominating the market for some time now as physical CD purchases continue to fall. For Apple, a significant lead over the rest of the music proprietor world is not enough: according to the Financial Times, the company is now working together with the four largest record labels in the business to add new features to accompany digital music purchases through its iTunes Store in hopes of stimulating full album purchases. [The FT also reports, without hedging, that Apple's "media pad" tablet device will ship in time for the holiday shopping season. According to the paper, the long-rumored iPad is intended as a full-featured portable computer and video & music player, like an oversized iPod touch, including wireless data connectivity but no built-in phone functions.] Apple has formed an alliance with EMI, Sony Music, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music to bundle whole albums with perks like interactive booklets, digital sleeve notes, and video clips. By doing so, Apple hopes to increase sales of the albums over single track purchases, a sales model that has been immensely popular in the advent of digital music. The project, codenamed "Cocktail," is intended to recreate the former experience of album-purchasing, where you could browse the liner notes, follow lyrics, and look at the album artwork as the music played. Executives have said that users will even be able to play music straight from the proposed interactive booklets without having to use iTunes. Of course, the main motivation for increasing album sales is to increase profits, as albums have a higher margin than individual songs. This change is one that should have taken place a long time ago- having to search for lyrics on shady, ad-ridden websites should already be a fading, shudder-inducing memory (though liner notes have been available on some albums, a change across the board has yet to take place). As items like liner notes and photos are possibly the last benefit that physical CDs can offer over digital purchases, this may turn out to be a very serious blow to the CD market. The iTunes Store album add-ons are set to roll out in September.
VUDU offers up Brightcove ad-supported streaming video, Sony Music is the first to jump in
VUDU keeps adding to its offerings bit by bit, first Pandora, now Brightcove video is available, popping up in the VUDU Labs section. The first content up is from Sony Music's MyPlay Video Network, as Brightcove notches its first set-top box partner. You'll have to take a look to see what artists are available, but it's hard to argue with more free music to go with those HD & HDX purchases and rentals.
Universal and Sony prohibit Zune sharing for certain artists
It's official: record companies don't like you. After all that griping about signing up for the Zune music store -- and keep in mind that these record companies receive monies for selling songs here -- that resulted in Universal Music Group getting some sort of fat royalty check from Microsoft for Zune sales, not to mention whatever negotiations went on behind closed doors to come up with that ridiculously minimal "three days or three plays" sharing scheme, a couple of labels have once again gone out of their way to make life hard on you. It appears Sony Music and Universal Music Group are marking certain artists of theirs as "prohibited" for sharing, meaning that just because you've paid for a song, and even managed to find another Zune user on the planet Earth, doesn't mean you'll necessarily get to beam that JoJo track to another Zune via WiFi magics. In a non-scientific sampling of popular artists by Zunerama and Zune Thoughts, it looks like it's roughly 40-50 percent of artist that fall under this prohibited banner, and the worst news is that there's no warning that a song might be unsharable until you actually try to send it and fail. Oh well, maybe you can just hum a few bars or something -- just make sure the labels don't hear you![Via ClicZune]Read - ZuneramaRead - Zune Thoughts
