Artifactual: Amazon Cloud Service

Amazon took everyone by surprise not too long ago with the release of their Cloud service. Wherein you can upload your files to Amazons servers and access them whenever or wherever you want as long as you have an Internet connection.

Files of all kinds can be uploaded and stored on the Cloud drive, and can be downloaded from any device with an Internet connection and Cloud drive app. There are four default folders: Documents, Music, Pictures, and Video. You can use these folders or make your own; the folder creation process is simple and easy.

All Amazon users with an account automatically get 5GB of storage for FREE. So if you want to try it out, log in and download the app at no cost to you. If you buy a digital music album from Amazon, they will automatically upgrade you to 20GB free. After that, storage costs about $1 per gigabyte per year. 20GB will cost you $20 a year; 50GB will cost you $50 a year; and so on; all the way to a full terabyte.

What’s even cooler, any new MP3s downloaded directly to the cloud drive on Amazon’s store will not use up your online storage at all. The other side of that would be that it won’t go to your default storage device. But that’s entirely your choice.

Obviously the attention with Amazon’s cloud service (@amazonmp3)is their music player. Most people will want to upload their music collection or even map their cloud drive like a local network drive on their computer. It works very well for what it is. The ability to listen to YOUR music on the computer, phone or whatever without having it take up any of your hard drive space. Get the Android app here.

Now the MP3 up-loader can be a bit annoying. If you store all your music in one folder then it will take the up-loader a very long time to check your files. It would be nice if it let you select certain files without the app trying to find everything automatically. It’s not a big deal but can be trouble when you’re in a hurry. Again, that only applies if you like to keep all your music in one place. (Which, most of us do)

As glorious as it sounds, it’s not been all rainbows and giggles. The music industry isn’t too happy about Amazons Cloud service. Allowing users to upload whatever music they want makes the industry honchos paranoid. Amazon didn’t feel it necessary to have the music labels permission to launch the player and only notified them of the impending launch one week before it went public. It would be safe to assume that there will be a lawsuit in the near future.

FYI, the Damnwells are amazing

If a lawsuit does occur, then Amazon may give your information over to the labels. As they say in their terms and agreement “We do not guarantee that Your Files will not be subject to misappropriation, loss or damage and we will not be liable if they are. You’re responsible for maintaining appropriate security, protection and backup of Your Files.” In other words, it wouldn’t be wise to upload anything obtained from illegal methods.

If you have been searching for a good cloud music solution then I can tell you that the Cloud Player is the best service yet. It’s great seeing Amazon giving music a breath of fresh air and they really seem to be free of any limitations. I have to personally congratulate Amazon for creating something so innovative and open. But be on the lookout for Googles response.

Currently the Cloud player on the computer opens as another tab in your browser. That can be a bit annoying, especially if you like to have a lot of tabs open, like me. I hope they find a different way to launch it soon.

The obvious point of using Cloud service is to provide access to files with different device as well as freeing up disk space. Now if you are interested in this purely for the music experience and don’t have an issue with hard drive space then you may want to just use AudioGalaxy, but that’s a conversation for another time.

And remember, a ducks quack will make an echo, just like everything else.

Play my outro….

^{Source: Amazon}