Amazon customers can now store 250 songs for free with the new update for Cloud Player, Amazon’s challenge to Apple’s iTunes Match.
“The update includes a new feature that scans folders containing music on your computer and automatically matches up that music to songs within Amazon’s catalog,” reports Digital Trends. “It doesn’t matter if the music was ripped from a compact disc or purchased through another competing service.”
“After matching up the music, customers will be able to access the music within Cloud Player. Similar to Apple’s iTunes Match, the music will be upgraded to 256 Kbps quality despite the original bit rate of each song,” explains the post.
Also new is the inclusion of all the past music purchases on a specific Amazon account, allowing users to access music from any browser and mobile device. Amazon is also offering its Premium package that allows storage of 250,000 songs for $24.99 per year.
“In addition, all songs purchased on Amazon don’t count towards the 250 or 250,000 limit,” notes Digital Trends. “Beyond the Cloud Player features, Amazon is also splitting up Cloud Player from the Cloud Drive product. Any Amazon user can get 5GB of file storage for free with Cloud Drive, but can pay for premium plans up to $500 a year for 1TB of online data storage.”
In a related article by Ars Technica, Amazon is changing its stance on the need for music licenses. With the Cloud Player’s initial launch over a year ago, the company viewed the service as a media management application that did not require licenses.
But this week in a press release, Amazon announced licensing agreements “with Sony Music Entertainment, EMI Music, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, and more than 150 independent distributors, aggregators and music publishers.”
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