Music industry will force licenses on Amazon Cloud Player—or else

That period is over. The fact that the music industry is arguing over where and how you should be allowed to listen to a piece of digital music you paid for is the height of absurdity. Music is, by its very nature, a shared experience. It has always been thus throughout history. All of these arguments about "licensing", whether it's on the radio, streaming services, or in a cloud locker should be seen as what they are: a cash grab.

I personally and sincerely hope that record labels die out completely - I would not miss them one bit.

The thing that confuses most people is the emerging doctrine of information sale. What the music companies would like to be true, is that selling you a CD (or an MP3) is equivalent to selling you a ticket to hear the performance once. And as you could not reasonably expect, having bought a ticket to a musical performance, to be able to change the venue for that performance, the industry would like to equate that absurd request to transliterating a recording into a different medium or access method.

Consumers on the other hand have expressed a strong belief that they "own" that instance of the music and that transliterating it, listening to it from different devices, and/or putting it on a mix tape and having it play as background music for their housewarming party are all 'well within their rights' of things they can do with what they own.

The legal tool is of course copyright and many cases have focused on what exactly does it mean to make a copy (which would have been more obvious had the original case against magnetic tape gone the way of the record labels) and what is fair use, and what is the greater good.

The motivating force is of course money. Given the physical challenges of having copies and even with tape carrying them around, the record labels were still able to extract a lot of money out of the system. With digital copies and network access it is a lot harder and they can see a time (or fear we are already in it) where the economics don't support the existence of a heavy weight 'middle man' in the music business.

Amazon is clearly positioning Cloud Drive with the assumption that the consumer's conceptual model (I bought it I can do what I want with it) is correct. The music companies will counter with "How can you know they bought it? Maybe they just borrowed it from the library?" Amazon has a stronger claim if they have a receipt (and its one that Apple uses with iTunes).

Best case, Amazon provokes a lawsuit that gives us a bit more clarity, worst case Amazon can only stream music from a Cloud Drive that you've purchased from the Amazon store (and perhaps to only a single IP address). It would not be a bad outcome (for Amazon) if lots of people were willing to re-license their music through Amazon's mp3 store.

Perhaps we should start a pool for when the last record label that existed prior to 2000 goes out of business. I strongly believe the outcome is inevitable, only the roughness of the journey is left to ascertain.

[1] http://techliberation.com/2006/04/19/why-the-mp3com-decision...

- Admiral Grace Hopper

I think there's a fine line that's crossed when you have to upload your own bits rather than re-use their bits.

(The key argument? "We just transfer the bits." The ISPs' routers don't need music licenses, why should S3?)

If Amazon loses, I hope the RIAA goes after AT&T next for all the music that's inevitably caught in their illegal wiretaps.

http://www.caglecartoons.com/images/preview/%7Bac7d2177-a870...