Amazon and Google can breathe a sigh of relief at the news that a US judge has ruled that cloud locker providers do not infringe copyright.
US Judge William Pauley ruled that music site MP3Tunes was not infringing copyright becuse its users rather than the website were responsible for uploading tracks.
The advent of digital music lockers is going to a major trend sweeping the technology industry in the coming year and both Amazon and Google have developed different music locker products.
Apple has gone even further with its iCloud platform and has worked in collaboration with major record labels to get their support and avoid potential copyright battles.
However, Amazon and Google went ahead with their own cloud locker products without consent from the music labels.
Amazon’s Cloud Player for Web lets users store up to 1,000 songs on its servers for free and stream them over an internet connection via computer browsers or Android phones.
Google has been trialling and testing a service internally called Google Music, which will allow users to store songs online for a subscription of US$25 per year.
In June Steve Jobs revealed Apple’s new iCloud service after securing agreement from Sony, EMI, Universal and Warner. iCloud storage will work across all iOS devices, as well as Macs and PCs.
Users who buy music no longer have to deal with the frustration of trying to download their songs on different devices. By hitting the iCloud button alongside purchased items in iTunes the songs will synch across the user’s collection.
Jobs confirmed there will be no charge for multiple downloads of purchased music and that users can push their music to up to 10 different devices.
