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The cloud
computing service announced by Amazon at the end of last month comes in two
parts. The first is the Cloud Drive, a digital storage locker for documents,
photographs, music and video. The second, available only in the US for the
moment, is the Cloud Player, an online streaming music player that works on
some Macs, most PCs and the Android smartphones.
The music
business immediately claimed that the sky is falling. One industry executive
says he is stunned, another stormed that the Cloud Player is probably illegal.
More measured voices say that this is simply a clever marketing strategy to
promote MP3 sales at Amazon, while Apple and Google fume that they didn’t get
there first.
The cloud
is the consumer friendly name for what was once called “cyberspace”, now
refined as the digital locker: “Anything digital, securely stored, available
anywhere,” as it says on the Amazon.com website. The Cloud Player is restricted
to audio for the moment but Amazon has not ruled out a future deal with the
UltraViolet (UV) consortium, which includes Nokia, Sony, Comcast and Netflix in
addition to five of the top six studios. If they agree, it will be simple for
Amazon to add streaming video as well.
All
internet data is stored on hard drives somewhere on the planet. With cloud
computing, where and how the data is stored is immaterial as long as it is
secure, backed up regularly and accessible whenever and wherever it is
required. Most movement of information was one-way at first – from the web site
to the user. As the cost of data storage fell, companies offered surplus disk
space to internet-connected users, for “disaster recovery” initially and
subsequently as part of an out-sourced data centre.
Amazon has
taken this principle and offered it to consumers. They own and operate the hard
drives but are not responsible for the data that is on them. It works for the
business community, so why not for the consumer?
The Cloud
Drive concept that Amazon offers is very simple and not particularly
controversial, most ISPs have offered similar back-up services for years.
Amazon allocates customers an initial 5GB of personal online storage space free
of charge subject to a service plan agreement. This specifically prohibits
commercial use, distribution or file sharing and it gives Amazon the right to
restrict access from “certain locations”.
It also
forbids the sharing of Amazon usernames and passwords in order to give others
access to the account. Amazon reserves the right to terminate the service if
misused and once withdrawn, customers have no right to open another account.
This will allow the company to disconnect any user suspected of illegal
activity.
Further
onerous rules apply in a contract clearly influenced by problems elsewhere. For
example, the service agreement excludes specifically responsibility for the
“appropriate security, protection and backup of your files”, which is
unacceptable in commercial terms but standard stuff in a consumer agreement. It
is the clause that gives Amazon the right to “access, retain, use and disclose
your account information and your files”, as determined by the company or in
order to comply with “applicable law”, a clause that could cause problems in
the future.
File
sharing sites such as the much-vilified RapidShare have always defended their
operations by saying they have no idea what users upload and download. They do
not want to know, since that could make them complicit in enforcement and with
so much encrypted data on the site, impossible to monitor. Streaming audio and
video files are hard to encrypt and by insisting on the right to examine its
customers’ files, Amazon assumes a policing role that will grow as usage
increases. YouTube validates every upload but it seems that Amazon does not
plan to seek out users who store pirated or copyright-infringing content,
unless they are obliged to do so in law.
The basic
free Cloud Drive with 5GB storage could contain around 1,000 mp3 tracks, a
single DVD quality movie or 5,000 JPEG photographs, which might be enough for
many users. Increasing the free allowance to 20GB will cost an annual £12.50,
while customers going for broke will pay £625 per year for the maximum allowed
– a terabyte (TB or 1,000GB) of data. More than enough to make illegal file
sharing possible, which is why Amazon imposes further conditions.
No single
audio file may be larger than 100MB, which makes it more difficult to share
data in contravention of the agreement, but a technical restriction makes
widespread misuse of the Amazon Cloud Drive unlikely. Every time a user
accesses data from a different device, a 24-hour countdown begins. No more than
five devices can connect in any 24-hour period and users must wait until the
first countdown completes before connecting a sixth device. This simple but
effective system should all but eliminate the use of the Cloud Drive as a file
distribution mechanism.
But it is
the Cloud Player that is at the heart of the squabble, which arose partly
because Amazon made the decision to release the application first and talk to
licence holders afterwards. Currently, only customers with an Amazon.com
account can access the Cloud Player but this has not reduced the vocal
opposition from UK publishers that has greeted its arrival.
A small
application on a computer or in the form of an Android application for mobile
phones, the Cloud Player resembles a cross between iTunes and Spotify. Users
can play music tracks from their local hard disk or from any of the files that
are stored in the Amazon cloud — on any device and without the need to download
them first. Amazon maintains that it requires no licence from rights owners
since that is the responsibility of the person who uploaded it.
Companies
that offer competing services include Catch Media, which provides the Play
Anywhere service from Carphone Warehouse. CEO Harry Maloney says in “Music
Week” that it took several years to negotiate a licensing deal, while others
have sidestepped licensing agreements altogether. “As an industry in the UK, we
have to start rattling cages,” he says.
The music
industry is right to claim that users will stream illegally ripped audio from
their Cloud Drive to every device they own, although these files could equally
be stored on the device itself. Amazon argues it is not a party to copyright
infringement because it returns the data to the consumer unaltered and
therefore requires no licence. This is unlike YouTube, which ran into trouble
because it re-encodes uploaded files, whereas Cloud Player simply reads the
original data back to the user.
“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,” Amazon says in a
statement. The company argues that the Cloud Drive is actually an effective
marketing tool for the sale of MP3 albums, which will therefore increase the
Labels’ income. Any track purchased from Amazon is automatically available from
the Cloud Drive and does not count towards the storage quota. The company says
this increases the likelihood that customers will buy the MP3 outright, rather
than download it from illegal sources.
It has the
added benefit for Amazon that there is no need to store multiple copies of the
same thing, since although legally purchased MP3s appear on the customers’
Cloud Drive, they may be streamed from a central source. It is not surprising
that the company can afford to offer free storage for such “virtual” files.
If the
audio Cloud Player proves successful, Amazon clearly has eyes on the video
market, perhaps linked to the UV Digital Locker. Ultimately, customers will buy
video and films online from Amazon for delivery to their Cloud Drive. From
there, the content streams directly into their home, workplace or smartphone,
with no wait for the physical media to arrive.
It is a
great idea but you can understand why some companies believe that Amazon’s move
into the cloud will rain on their parade.
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