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[RedJ]

I just became an owner of an Amazon Cloud Drive account and I'm very impressed, even in this early iteration.  I honestly think it's the future of media storage/access.  Since I make the vast majority of my downloadable music purchases through Amazon it's tight integration is great plus it's got an accompanying Android app that automatically lets me access my purchases anywhere.  

There's also a promotion going right now that upgraded my storage capacity from the 5GB to 20GB free for the next year (with purchase of any album, which there are plenty of decent choices even at the $5 level) which gives me a lot of space to upload tracks from my desktop library to add to the Cloud Drive.

Here's where MC comes in: I would really like to be able to upload my tracks directly from MC instead of through Amazons' very limited Adobe Air-based interface.  This way I can take advantage of MC's extensive smartlist functionality so I only get the tracks I'm likely to want to access remotely.  It would be ideal to also download tracks from my Cloud Drive through MC so that all my tracks are unified in their management.

Amazon already has a presence in MC, albeit more of as an internally rendered website; is it a complete pipedream to hope that JRiver can integrate Amazon Cloud Drive as a service?  I don't know if Amazon is even supplying an API for this related to some sort of partner program, but I think that would be a great benefit both to MC and Amazon.  Again, I now expect that many people's music libraries will exist, to a large extent, only in the cloud in a few years time.  MC is going to have to somehow accommodate online storage and access sometime, might as well be with Amazon who is the clear leader in this movement right now (we'll have to see on Google, they've got two hills to climb simultaneously to capture the cloud music market).

[KingSparta]

MP3.Com Had Something Simular Called, "My.MP3.com"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UMG_v._MP3.com

About mp3.com

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP3.com

[RedJ]

MP3.Com Had Something Simular Called, "My.MP3.com"

I remember them.  If you're implying a parallel about their legality and eventual fate, I think that misses an important distinction between their approaches.  This post from another discussion re: the legality of Amazon's approach states it well:
"(In the case of MP3.com), the website stored one copy of each piece of music, required the user to verify they owned it, then allowed you access to their stored copy. This was found to be actionable as they were allowing multiple people to download one master copy of a MP3, essentially repeatedly pirating that MP3.
Amazon is establishing a separate cloud drive for each user. If you buy a MP3 they copy it to your personal drive for you. They also allow you to upload your music to that drive. There is a separate copy of each song stored on the cloud drive for each user, and the only MP3s Amazon copies to the drive are legally purchased. As the user can only download what they have uploaded or purchased, no piracy occurs, at least on Amazon's part. Users may be storing pirated music on their personal cloud drives, but these are private file storage areas and do not allow MP3s to be exchanged among users, thus the cloud drive does not facilitate piracy.purchased. As the user can only download what they have uploaded or purchased, no piracy occurs, at least on Amazon's part. Users may be storing pirated music on their personal cloud drives, but these are private file storage areas and do not allow MP3s to be exchanged among users, thus the cloud drive does not facilitate piracy.
required the user to verify they owned it, then allowed you access to their stored copy. This was found to be actionable as they were allowing multiple people to download one master copy of a MP3, essentially repeatedly pirating that MP3.
Amazon is establishing a separate cloud drive for each user. If you buy a MP3 they copy it to your personal drive for you. They also allow you to upload your music to that drive. There is a separate copy of each song stored on the cloud drive for each user, and the only MP3s Amazon copies to the drive are legally purchased. As the user can only download what they have uploaded or purchased, no piracy occurs, at least on Amazon's part. Users may be storing pirated music on their personal cloud drives, but these are private file storage areas and do not allow MP3s to be exchanged among users, thus the cloud drive does not facilitate piracy."

Plus, Google and Apple are launching their own versions of this type of cloud-based service, so it will be a lot harder for the music industry to swim against this tide, especially when so much of their current revenues are dependent on these very companies.

[Just edited to take out the redundant text.  Wow! Android's UI has some problems that still need hammering out.]

[KingSparta]

>> They also allow you to upload your music to that drive.

How Do They Know That The MP3 You Uploaded From Your Own Library Was Not Pirated From P2P, etc...?

I Don't Think They Can.

So I Think They Could Have A Problem With That Part Of There Concept.

[RedJ]

>> They also allow you to upload your music to that drive.

How Do They Know That The MP3 You Uploaded From Your Own Library Was Not Pirated From P2P, etc...?

I'm sure that will be one of the RIAA's main points, if they object.  But how does my online backup service know that  I own what I'm backing up?  How do they know I'm not sending copyrighted images through SMS or email?  A cloud drive is remote data storage, which is up to the individual user to use legally.  Unlike MP3.com, Amazon is not providing the data (except in the case of items purchased legally through them, which they simply copy straight to your cloud storage to save you a step).  I'm supposed to be the only person with access to my cloud drive, so It's not usable as a distribution mechanism.  The cloud drive is no more of a threat for illegally obtained content than my large NAS drive.

I would also point out that, aside from the above legal considerations, the world has changed a lot since MP3.com's time and we now have YouTube, Google caching pages of the internet, and many other things that have softened the ground for companies to be more accepting of new concepts.

[KingSparta]

>> I would also point out that, aside from the above legal considerations,
>> the world has changed a lot since MP3.com's time
Agreed

Will See What Happens.

I Am Sure Amazon Did Not Go Into This Blind, But Sometimes I Think Amazon And Google Preses The Envelope.

[The Computer Audiophile]

I hate to necropost, but I'm wondering if JRiver has looked into more support for Amazon Cloud Drive. For $60 per year you get unlimited storage. Right now I am using a Synology NAS to automatically backup to my Amazon Cloud Drive, but it would be really nice if this was a feature built into MC. Many people don't have Synology NAS units and most of the audiophlies I know don't know how to configure the NAS to backup to the cloud. It's not rocket science, but it's outside of their comfort zones.

A simple MC to Amazon Cloud Drive login would be fantastic.

Access to those uploaded tracks is another thing altogether (at least for me). It's not that important to me because MC already streams from my house to anywhere in the world.