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Digital
Amazon negotiating licences for locker service
By CMU Editorial | Published on Thursday 14 June 2012
Amazon is close to signed licensing deals for its cloud storage service, according to C-Net.
Amazon, like Google, launched a music-focused online storage service in the US last year without any licences from record companies or music publishers, arguing that its customers could upload copies of digital files to its servers without infringing copyright, utilising their private copy right.
While that is technically true, many label execs argued that playback functionality offered by Amazon and Google was not covered by that exemption, though the subsequent slow consumer uptake of the locker services has meant little formal action has been taken against the web giants.
The inaction may also have been motivated by the fact that many reckon that digital locker services will only succeed if they can offer more sophisticated functionality, like the scan and match element of Apple’s iCloud, and those extra services definitely do need licenses from the labels (and the Apple service is therefore licensed).
This means Google and Amazon were always likely to enter into negotiations with the music firms at some point anyway. And, seemingly, that has been happening as far as Amazon is concerned. Though quite what those deals will allow, and how close they are to being signed, isn’t entirely clear just yet.
