“Apple chief executive Steve Jobs’ announcement [yesterday] at the Worldwide Developers Conference that Apple’s new iCloud service will allow music fans to reproduce their entire digital collections on locker-style servers accessible via 10 devices – including iPhones, iPads and computers – may not save the ravaged record industry, but it could provide a crucial new revenue stream while allowing consumers to easily consolidate their music libraries in the cloud,” Steve Knopper reports for Rolling Stone.
“The service will scan and match users’ current music collections for music carried by the iTunes store, and then make it available to all of the users’ devices by sending the songs’ metadata to the cloud,” Knopper reports. “The new iTunes iMatch [sic] service will cost $25 a year, with unlimited storage, for users to copy digital music ripped from CDs, downloaded illegally or purchased in other online stores… Syd Schwartz, a former EMI Music executive who is now a consultant to artist managers and record labels, tells Rolling Stone, ‘I’m sure someone in an executive office at a major label somewhere is going, ‘At least that’s one way we can monetize the stuff people stole from Napster over the years.””
MacDailyNews Note: iTunes Match is not “unlimited.” The limit is 25,000 songs (iTunes purchases do not count against the 25,000 song limit).
“Unlike competitors Google and Amazon, Apple has licensing deals with record labels to use their vast song catalogs by artists from the Beatles to Led Zeppelin to Lady Gaga in the new service,” Knopper reports. “As the world’s biggest music retailer, with longstanding label deals for iTunes, Apple had the clout to make these deals where Amazon, Google and Spotify could not. The deals allow Apple to scan a user’s hard drive for music not purchased via iTunes, then store it on servers available for access anywhere. Thus, users do not have to upload their own collections, a cumbersome and time-consuming process.”
Knopper reports, “Many in the music business predict Apple will use iCloud as a gateway to a broader subscription service, perhaps in the next few months, although Jobs did not address this point in his speech. ‘It’s a good start,’ says another music-business source. ‘If everyone in America who consumed music paid $25 to put their music in a cloud and then [iCloud] turns into a subscription-based music service – doesn’t sound bad to me. Those economics would work well for everyone.'”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]