Amazon faces off against music industry over cloud storage

Amazon has launched its Cloud Player online music streaming service without securing multiple licenses – a decision that has been described as a bold move.

According to Wired, Amazon feels that it doesn’t need to buy additional licenses, and the decision to push ahead with the launch effectively forces the music industry to come to an agreement with Amazon, initiate legal action or implicitly accept the situation through inaction.

The service will allow users to upload their music collections to the cloud, which can then be streamed to any device or browser, regardless of whether or not the tracks were purchased via Amazon.

“If Amazon can launch its service with no licenses, then Apple and Google would be fools to get licenses because they’d be at a cost disadvantage,” MP3Tunes CEO Michael Robertson told Wired. “If the labels do nothing, they’re basically inviting Google and Apple to follow the same strategy.”