Amazon announces unlimited MP3 storage with any Cloud Drive plan

http://www.amazon.com/b/ref=tsm_1_tw_s_dm_lnxnwv?node=2658409011

by phinze • 15 years ago

64 56 15 years ago

amazon.com

esrauch2• 15 years ago

Amazon seems to use images of text an awful lot. Anyone know why that is?

dlsspy• 15 years ago

I keep trying to copy the text to share with someone, but failing. Maybe they don't want people to know.

drivebyacct22• 15 years ago

Very frustrating for anyone who is on mobile or happens to like how their text renders. These images are flat out difficult to read in places.

But since I bought an MP3 album a while back, I effectively have a free cloud to store my 40GB of music in. I'll take text-ful-images for that.

esrauch2• 15 years ago

Are you planning on actually using it? I uploaded some music to Amazon's mp3 when it first launched and more to Google's MP3 and I have found very little need to use either one. I obviously can't fit all my music on my phone (an android) but I generally am ok with the music I have at any particular time and swapping.

tptacek• 15 years ago

Maybe they have an internal tool that generates text/image composites like this from something like Markdown. We did that for one of our product sites; it was pretty handy.

Joakal2• 15 years ago

Images lookup service may show this, increasing barriers to being paraphrased (meaning official looking and link on it) and solid metric with SEO juice if hot linked.

It's akin to infographic SEO (You can look it up).

mcpherrinm2• 15 years ago

I worked at Amazon for a while as an intern, but I didn't see how a ton of the external facing stuff worked like this. So in some ways, this is mostly speculation.

I notice one big thing about image-based announcements: I'd rarely hear about the publicly first, and I'd definitely not hear about them internally in an official way. Leak-proofing things.

I suspect the reason for images is because it's simply harder for PR/management types to make a decent looking webpage that works in multiple browsers. It's way faster to export an image from whatever software they use to generate it.

And I suspect it avoids deployment headaches.

smackfu• 15 years ago

Looks like they have standardized on a 475 pixel width headline image for each section. In this case, it has lots of text, but usually it has product photos emphasized with headline text.

kylec• 15 years ago

Are there any indications on what "for a limited time" means? Is there a term for which Amazon has promised to provide this service for free? Once the unlimited storage is no longer offered, will the existing files in the cloud be 'grandfathered' in and continue to be free to store, or will people be expected to pay or face loss of access to the files in the Cloud Drive?

Joakal2• 15 years ago

Likely a combination of both, similar to Dropbox's freemium.

chris112• 15 years ago

I don't know what "for a limited time" means, but when accounts get downgraded, you keep the higher storage capacity until the end of the billing cycle. Then they give you a limited amount of time to delete files and download them.

reaganing3• 15 years ago

Clarification, obvious: You only get unlimited MP3 (and AAC) storage with any paid Cloud Drive plan. You won't get it with the free 5GB plan.

Of course, I think most people are probably on the 20GB plan since Amazon was giving those away with the purchase of an MP3 album for quite some time.

llambda• 15 years ago

Okay I tried and failed: what qualifies as "eligible" MP3 and AAC files? I misread the "Learn More" link that was related to previous purchases as being the "Learn More" for eligible files, but afaict that "Learn More" link related to eligible files isn't active so I'm confused as to what will qualify as eligible.

TillE• 15 years ago

In my cloud drive settings (I have a temporarily-free-with-purchase 20GB account):

"Upload an unlimited number of songs in any supported file format with Amazon Cloud Player.

Supported file formats for songs Cloud Drive currently supports song files in the following formats:

.mp3—Standard non-DRM file format (Includes Amazon MP3 Store purchased files)

.m4a—AAC files (Includes iTunes store purchased files)

Any MP3 or AAC files added to your Cloud Drive will be available for playback and download using Amazon Cloud Player. Upload your music now with Amazon Cloud Player."

chris112• 15 years ago

Do you know if this includes filters for length? For instance would rips of audiobooks be viewed as eligible for free storage?

jrockway• 15 years ago

If I wanted to sue people for having pirated copies of my content, the first thing I would do is ask everyone to upload all their files to my servers so I could inspect them. If I paid them, they probably wouldn't even realize that I was out to get them.

baddox2• 15 years ago

How could they really know if the music you uploaded was pirated? Even if your stuff is tagged with scene groups, that's not even close to proof that you pirated it.

pyre2• 15 years ago

I imagine through fingerprinting, checksums of files, etc. Though that's not fool-proof as people can an do change the metadata, filenames, etc of the files they download. (That's not even touching people that download FLAC and then convert to mp3 for 'actual usage').

jonknee3• 15 years ago

That would be the downfall of Amazon. They're simply competing with Apple.

dfischer• 15 years ago

So I get unlimited space for music at $20/yr? Umm, yeah sign me up unless there's a catch.

Unlimited space for music details Limited time offer: All paid storage plans include unlimited space for music at no additional charge. Upload as many songs as you like without taking up any of your storage space. Listen to your music anywhere with Amazon Cloud Player.

dons• 15 years ago

Well, that's kind of interesting. I just bought 100G so I could store all my mp3s in the cloud player while travelling. After uploading about 40G, this plan must have activated, and it shows "< 1%" of 100G used. Cool idea: I might use the space for data now.

sid0• 15 years ago

No FLAC support?

reaganing3• 15 years ago

The Cloud Player Web and Android apps don't support FLAC, and the unlimited storage only applies to MP3 and AAC files.

But you're able to store any kind of files in Cloud Drive if you just want access to them to copy to different computers.

nicksergeant2• 15 years ago

I'd really like to know which of my files were not "eligible". I selected a folder which had 9,192 MP3 / M4A files in it, and only 6,822 were "eligible". I'm fine with some not being able to be uploaded, but please tell me which ones.

nicksergeant2• 15 years ago

Completely, 100% never mind. There's a small, not-so-obvious link for "Music that cannot be uploaded"

technomancy2• 15 years ago

Q: What is the cloud?

A: The cloud is a term used to describe the Internet. [...]

Hm; that kind of straightforwardness is actually kind of refreshing.

mcpherrinm2• 15 years ago

I wonder how much verification is done that the files are MP3? You could reasonably put other data inside MP3 containers and use Cloud Drive as a nice, inexpensive backup solution.

Time to start writing a tool ;)

unfletch• 15 years ago

People did this to share non-mp3 files on the original Napster. I wonder if Wrapster still runs... http://www.team-mp3.com/mp3/wrapster.htm

JonnieCache2• 15 years ago

Thank-you for that dose of nostalgia.

pavel_lishin• 15 years ago

Well, if I were to do it, I'd probably implement a few checks.

I would check to make sure that the ID3 information was no more than, say, 10% of the total file size. (I'd probably adjust the percentage based on actually inspecting a large collection of files; say, the ones available for download through Amazon.)

I'd probably make sure that the resulting sound output had a regular pattern - a steady beat, etc - and flag for review anything that wasn't, probably with a rating of how likely it is for the file to not be an mp3.

And obviously, scan the file to make sure that it doesn't obviously contain an archive, images, ASCII text that falls within the KJV bible distribution, and check for other formats; someone renaming stolen_e_book.pdf into music.mp3 would probably be pretty obvious.

scrod• 15 years ago

On "eligibility" requirements:

>Note: Music recordings in other formats, lossless files, or audio recordings that are not of songs and non-audio files (even if in MP3 or AAC format) are not eligible for unlimited music space and will count against your Cloud Drive storage space.

I have to wonder if this is simply a TOS issue or if Amazon is actually doing something similar to iTunes Match and creating audio fingerprints of your songs so as to de-duplicate them.

yarian• 15 years ago

I wonder why they are not offering ogg vorbis support. Is it just not as popular? Are the files typically larger? Either way, it's a glaring omission imo.

gigawatt• 15 years ago

I'm not an expert, but I've been doing a little research on audio file compression to cut down on Amazon S3 charges for a personal site I have up that suddenly got a fair amount of traffic. The way I understand it, ogg vorbis files actually compress better than mp3s, so they're better on a quality/size ratio. A 3MB ogg file will generally sound better than a 3MB mp3 file.

I think the reason Amazon might not be supporting them is that not all browsers can play them natively — specifically, Safari needs a plug-in to play them. So, for my site, which is using jPlayer, I have to compress all the files as .oga and .mp3, then set up the mp3s as a fallback so Safari will stream them.

jonknee3• 15 years ago

Almost no one uses Ogg, not a very glaring omission in my opinion. Amazon sells MP3s. Apple sells AACs. No one with any market share sells Ogg files.

JonnieCache2• 15 years ago

This doesn't apply here but it is interesting: there is one major player making heavy use of ogg, and that is spotify. All their streaming is done in ogg.

wazoox2• 15 years ago

AFAIK all games sound and music have been in ogg format for ages.

RK• 15 years ago

My assumption is that this is a strategic move against Apple and ipod/iphone doesn't support ogg, so it doesn't come into play. Just a guess.

thamiam• 15 years ago

E-mail I just received from Amazon. I can't believe how exactly right this this, and how unexpected that is.

(full disclosure, I am an Amazon employee, not affiliated with the MP3 or cloud drive team. I was just independently motivated to share this, because not one hour earlier I had been looking at my downgrade options on my phone).

"Information About Your Cloud Drive Account

Hello,

Thanks for your prior purchase of the 100 GB Amazon Cloud Drive storage plan. Beginning today, all paid Cloud Drive storage plans include unlimited space for MP3 and AAC (.m4a) music files at no extra charge for a limited time. Learn more here:

http://www.amazon.com/mp3gettingstarted

Because your current plan now includes unlimited space for music, we're refunding the difference between the cost of your original Cloud Drive plan of 100 GB and the cost of a current 20 GB plan ($20), which is the least-expensive Cloud Drive plan that includes unlimited space for music. A refund of $80 will be issued to the card originally used for your Amazon Cloud Drive storage plan. Refunds are typically completed within 10 business days and will appear as a credit on your credit card statement.

We hope to see you again soon!

Sincerely,

The Amazon MP3 Team http://www.amazon.com/mp3

cmelbye• 15 years ago

Wow, Amazon continues to amaze. I'd really love an iPhone app, though. This is kind of useless for me until they release one (I prefer iTunes to listening to music on my laptop, it's faster and has a nicer interface.)

neuroelectronic• 15 years ago

You can use the web player through safari.

WalterSear• 15 years ago

What's to stop me from changing all my file names to 'mp3'?

mfringel• 15 years ago

So.... the paranoid part of me thinks this sounds like:

"Upload all of your mp3/aac files for free with any paid cloud drive plan... until we start charging for the 'mp3/aac files don't count towards your quota' option, which is $9.99/mo."

8ig8• 15 years ago

Anyone have experience mounting the Amazon Cloud Drive on OSX? It's apparently different than S3.

I did find a reference to mounting it as a virtual drive on Windows.

Specifically I was wondering about the possibility of rsync.

mark_l_watson• 15 years ago

Big win. I got a free 20gb account for a year just for buying a Johnny Winter CD (as MP3s) and I'll certainly pay for 20g after my free year is up.

I am using the player right now: very convenient to use from my laptop or droid. I haven't tried it from the living room on Google TV yet but that should also work fine.

qixxiq• 15 years ago

I wonder how much offering this actually costs them.

There must be some serious file duplication between users especially if they're offering unlimited mp3 sharing, since many people will have the same MP3 files (they can profit off piracy while pretending it doesn't exist).

If they're really clever about it they might even store the data separately (which will increase duplicate collisions quite a lot due to retagging)

Apocryphon• 15 years ago

This, my friends, is why competition in markets is a great thing.

samstokes• 15 years ago

Still no Linux support? :(

(I know about the web-based uploader, but it's super-clunky for uploading more than one or two albums - unlimited MP3 storage is no good if you have to spend a week navigating the interface, never mind the actual upload time!)

Amazon announces unlimited MP3 storage with any Cloud Drive plan

Related Stories