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Amazon sends letter to labels over cloud player

By | Published on Tuesday 12 April 2011

Amazon MP3

Amazon have sent a letter to the major record companies that could have been titled “please don’t sue us, pretty please, go on, leave it alone, you know want to”. Or perhaps “don’t you dare sue us you fuckers, cos the law is on our side thank you very muchos”. Depends what voice you use in your head when you read it I suppose.

The letter, from Amazon’s Music Team, starts by insisting that the etailer’s recently launched cloud locker and player service is already helping them sell more MP3s, which will, of course, benefit the music industry. Although they don’t provide any hard stats to back up that claim, they are obviously keen to push the idea that Amazon offering cloud-based MP3 storage to its customers, and the facility to play tracks from that online store via any net connected device, is really just a clever ruse to sell more MP3s.

They are keen to promote that idea, of course, because senior execs at many record labels and music publishers expressed concern when Amazon’s Cloud Drive and Player service went live all of a sudden last month, because the new service is unlicensed.

Many content owners believe that when tech companies start selling digital locker services that are specifically designed for music files, and especially when the service includes a playback player, some sort of licence from the record labels and music publishers is required.

And at least one label could sue Amazon to try and have that viewpoint enforced in court. But one of the messages in the web firm’s letter to the labels was that any such action would be counterproductive because, while the record companies do not earn directly from the new cloud service, they do earn indirectly if it leads to a rise in sales via AmazonMP3.com.

But, possibly aware that little carrot was unlikely to work, the letter goes on to restate Amazon’s position regarding the need for a licence for their storage service – ie that they don’t need one. According to Billboard, the letter reads: “There has also been speculation that we are looking for licences for Cloud Drive and Cloud Player. We are not looking for licenses for Cloud Drive or Cloud Player as they exist today – as no licensees are required”.

Dealing with the argument that it’s the player bit of the new service that differentiates it from other existing unlicensed digital storage systems on the market, many of which can be used to store MP3 files, the letter adds: “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”.

But let’s not end the letter in such a blunt potentially confrontational way, no, add another little carrot in there. Amazon add that they have plans to add more opt-in functionality to their Cloud Player in due course which may well need a licence – in their opinion – and therefore the web firm could, as yet, be on the phone looking to spend some more money with the music owners. Assuming, presumably, said music owners don’t get their lawyers busy on the Cloud Drive and Player as it currently stands.

It will be interesting to see what the major music companies’ next move will be.



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