Amazon Cloud Storage

Amazon launched Cloud Drive and Cloud Player last week to enable users to upload their music to a virtual drive and play it from anywhere via PC or Android phones. I think that is a great idea because I for one find it painful to sync my music between all the devices I own. However, a lot is being said about legality and controversy has been stirred up by the record labels.

But why is there a legal problem? People can upload music to any virtual drive and use it from anywhere. Amazon has just added another layer through its player to enable them to listen to the songs directly. People would have bought that music and own it. It doesn’t matter how they store it or listen to it or from where they access it.  Granted, there might be users who may upload pirated stuff, but I think the days of purely pirated music are gone. People do buy and own the music and it should be their right to use it anyway they want for personal use.

Currently, one can still play music stored on home PC using other mechanisms to access your PC. So the idea is not really new, but simply been made easier by Amazon. The recording industry already has deals for the music Amazon legally sells and that should suffice. In fact, the promotions Amazon generally has might encourage users to purchase more music directly from Amazon and use it through the drive. This scenario can be easily compared with the e-reader market and how Kindle has actually increased the book sales. People tend to read and buy more e-books when using Kindle because the buying action is so simple.

Old-fashioned industries need to understand that simplicity and accessibility are really important for this fast-changing generation of users who are addicted to their mobile devices.