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Amazon announces unlimited MP3 storage with any Cloud Drive plan

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Re: Amazon announces unlimited MP3 storage with any Cloud Drive plan

#51

Post by chris11 »

TillE wrote: post #20
llambda wrote: post #15

Okay I tried and failed: what qualifies as "eligible" MP3 and AAC files? I misread the "Learn More" link that was related to previous purchases as being the "Learn More" for eligible files, but afaict that "Learn More" link related to eligible files isn't active so I'm confused as to what will qualify as eligible.

In my cloud drive settings (I have a temporarily-free-with-purchase 20GB account): "Upload an unlimited number of songs in any supported file format with Amazon Cloud Player. Supported file formats for songs Cloud Drive currently supports song files in the following formats: .mp3—Standard non-DRM file format (Includes Amazon MP3 Store purchased files) .m4a—AAC files (Includes iTunes store purchased files) Any MP3 or…

Do you know if this includes filters for length? For instance would rips of audiobooks be viewed as eligible for free storage?

Re: Amazon announces unlimited MP3 storage with any Cloud Drive plan

#52

Post by chris11 »

kylec wrote: post #7

Are there any indications on what "for a limited time" means? Is there a term for which Amazon has promised to provide this service for free? Once the unlimited storage is no longer offered, will the existing files in the cloud be 'grandfathered' in and continue to be free to store, or will people be expected to pay or face loss of access to the files in the Cloud Drive?

I don't know what "for a limited time" means, but when accounts get downgraded, you keep the higher storage capacity until the end of the billing cycle. Then they give you a limited amount of time to delete files and download them.

Re: Amazon announces unlimited MP3 storage with any Cloud Drive plan

#53

Post by re »

chris11 wrote: post #51
TillE wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my cloud drive settings (I have a temporarily-free-with-purchase 20GB account): "Upload an unlimited number of songs in any supported file format with Amazon Cloud Player. Supported file formats for songs Cloud Drive currently supports song files in the following formats: .mp3—Standard non-DRM file format (Includes Amazon MP3 Store purchased files) .m4a—AAC files (Includes iTunes store purchased files) Any MP3 or…

Do you know if this includes filters for length? For instance would rips of audiobooks be viewed as eligible for free storage?

Answered here, somewhat: http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/?nodeId=...

> Files must be music recordings in MP3 (.mp3) or AAC (.m4a, iTunes non-DRM files) format and must be less than 100 MB in size... audio recordings that are not of songs and non-audio files (even if in MP3 or AAC format) are not eligible for unlimited music space.

Re: Amazon announces unlimited MP3 storage with any Cloud Drive plan

#54

Post by JonnieCache »

jonknee wrote: post #41
yarian wrote: post #32

I wonder why they are not offering ogg vorbis support. Is it just not as popular? Are the files typically larger? Either way, it's a glaring omission imo.

Almost no one uses Ogg, not a very glaring omission in my opinion. Amazon sells MP3s. Apple sells AACs. No one with any market share sells Ogg files.

This doesn't apply here but it is interesting: there is one major player making heavy use of ogg, and that is spotify. All their streaming is done in ogg.

Re: Amazon announces unlimited MP3 storage with any Cloud Drive plan

#55

Post by samstokes »

Still no Linux support? :(

(I know about the web-based uploader, but it's super-clunky for uploading more than one or two albums - unlimited MP3 storage is no good if you have to spend a week navigating the interface, never mind the actual upload time!)

Re: Amazon announces unlimited MP3 storage with any Cloud Drive plan

#56

Post by JonnieCache »

unfletch wrote: post #36
mcpherrinm wrote: post #30

I wonder how much verification is done that the files are MP3? You could reasonably put other data inside MP3 containers and use Cloud Drive as a nice, inexpensive backup solution. Time to start writing a tool ;)

People did this to share non-mp3 files on the original Napster. I wonder if Wrapster still runs... http://www.team-mp3.com/mp3/wrapster.htm

Thank-you for that dose of nostalgia.

Re: Amazon announces unlimited MP3 storage with any Cloud Drive plan

#57

Post by allwein »

reaganing wrote: post #13
esrauch wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you planning on actually using it? I uploaded some music to Amazon's mp3 when it first launched and more to Google's MP3 and I have found very little need to use either one. I obviously can't fit all my music on my phone (an android) but I generally am ok with the music I have at any particular time and swapping.

I don't stream much with it on my phone. But it's great to be able to download the album(s) I want to the device without needing to connect to my computer. Also, can never have too many backup copies of my music.

> Also, can never have too many backup copies of my music.

That's going to be my primary use of this service. I already have ways of accessing my music on my home machine remotely. But an additional offsite cloud backup of 150GB for $20 a year? Sold.

Re: Amazon announces unlimited MP3 storage with any Cloud Drive plan

#58

Post by wazoox »

jonknee wrote: post #41
yarian wrote: post #32

I wonder why they are not offering ogg vorbis support. Is it just not as popular? Are the files typically larger? Either way, it's a glaring omission imo.

Almost no one uses Ogg, not a very glaring omission in my opinion. Amazon sells MP3s. Apple sells AACs. No one with any market share sells Ogg files.

AFAIK all games sound and music have been in ogg format for ages.

Re: Amazon announces unlimited MP3 storage with any Cloud Drive plan

#59

Post by baddox »

pyre wrote: post #25
baddox wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How could they really know if the music you uploaded was pirated? Even if your stuff is tagged with scene groups, that's not even close to proof that you pirated it.

I imagine through fingerprinting, checksums of files, etc. Though that's not fool-proof as people can an do change the metadata, filenames, etc of the files they download. (That's not even touching people that download FLAC and then convert to mp3 for 'actual usage').

Not only can people change metadata, there's also a good possibility that a scene group and an innocent home user would make separate rips of a CD that would be bit for bit identical. There are checksum databases online that enthusiast rippers can use to verify that a ripped CD is identical to the results other rippers have achieved (i.e. no errors occurred in the ripping process).

There is a whole technical community dedicated to getting quality CD rips. As an example to how serious people are about this, one technique is to disable or circumvent the optical drive's buffer and make multiple read requests to each area of the disc to help ensure that the correct data was pulled in.

http://www.accuraterip.com/

http://www.digital-inn.de/forum14/

Re: Amazon announces unlimited MP3 storage with any Cloud Drive plan

#60

Post by jonknee »

wazoox wrote: post #58
jonknee wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost no one uses Ogg, not a very glaring omission in my opinion. Amazon sells MP3s. Apple sells AACs. No one with any market share sells Ogg files.

AFAIK all games sound and music have been in ogg format for ages.

And none of that would be in Amazon Music... Again, no one with any serious market share sells music in Ogg.
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