Amazon may argue that functionally, their Cloud Drive service is the same as storing media on an external hard drive, but question marks hover over their Cloud Player, which streams those tracks from the cloud.
In the eyes of Sony Music – and possibly more record labels – this Cloud Player requires Amazon to sign extra licensing deals and presumably cough up some more money to boot.
Sony Music’s spokeswoman Liz Young told Reuters that they “hope that they’ll reach a new licence deal, but we’re keeping all of our legal options open”. Another rep said that Amazon’s last-minute move into streaming – without giving the record labels a chance to OK it – was “somewhat stunning”. No one’s going down on paper and pointing fingers that the Cloud Player might be illegal, but people are certainly whispering behind Amazon’s back that that might be the case. [Reuters]