The Music Cloud Storage I would Use
Todays announcement of Amazon's Cloud Music player made the net abuzz and it's no secret that Apple and Google are planning similar services. However I don't find Amazon's offer very appealing.
Their starting storage size of 5 GB is a joke for any serious music library (even my phone has more storage) and their Terms of Service seem to suggest that they really just intend this to store music bought through their store only1).
This got me thinking how the ideal cloud storage service for my music should look like…
First, there would be no storage limit and there wouldn't be a fee to use it. This sounds insane but is easily achievable because there is no need to store the same album again and again for each and every user of the service.
Instead the service would use digital audio finger prints to identify the songs and managing my library. Files would only be uploaded when they aren't available on the platform, yet. Or if the file is of better quality than what's already there.
This would have many advantages for users right away:
- No need to upload hundreds of gigabytes
- The quality of your collection automatically improves (I still have lot's of files encoded in 128mbit/s from the early days of MP3)
- Music metadata could be fixed automatically
Additionally the platform should have a few more features like suggesting new music I might like and give me an easy way to buy it. Yes, there's your business model. To browse the available library an open API should be used. Maybe the Ampache API or something similar. Streaming should be available in different formats and qualities.
Now, will we see something like this in the near future? I doubt that. At least not until all the mayor record labels went the way of the Dodo.