Music Beta by Google

May 11, 2011 5:45 AM

Music Beta by Google launches today, so go request an invitation to stream 20,000 songs from your collection for free (for now) .
posted by carsonb (192 comments total)

Google Blue.

...but I requested an invite. Musical ubiquity awaits! :) Thanks.
posted by ZakDaddy at 5:52 AM on May 11, 2011

United States only. Bah.
posted by joelhunt at 5:53 AM on May 11, 2011

We're sorry. Music Beta is currently only available in the United States

I'd complain, but I'm Canadian, so I will politely sit in the corner and look mildly disgruntled while drinking superior beer.
posted by Shepherd at 5:54 AM on May 11, 2011 [33 favorites]

I ain't uploading a damned thing.
posted by bwg at 5:54 AM on May 11, 2011 [4 favorites]

Or use the Amazon equivalent today.

Neither works on the iPhone, of course.
posted by smackfu at 6:00 AM on May 11, 2011

Look, I understand cloud mania, but why do I want someone else cataloging my search criteria appointment calendar email media collection?
posted by cavalier at 6:01 AM on May 11, 2011 [4 favorites]

GACK! Forgot --
Neither works on the iPhone, of course.

YEA! SUCK IT, APPLE! Trying to get licenses from the labels.. oh you so sill-- MobileMe June what?
posted by cavalier at 6:02 AM on May 11, 2011

Use a US based proxy for the initial signup. It works. I'm in Cambridge, UK. It worked.
posted by jaduncan at 6:03 AM on May 11, 2011

non-americans : VK.com lets you do this from wherever
posted by 3mendo at 6:06 AM on May 11, 2011

I read the link and I still don't really understand what it does. I already have all my music in itunes, and I can listen to it and everything, and make playlists, etc.
posted by dgaicun at 6:07 AM on May 11, 2011

I requested an invite yesterday. I've got an Amazon cloud thing, though I haven't used it much. The Amazon mp3 downloader is glitchy for me, though - when I download an album from Amazon, it tells me I need the downloader, although I already have it. I think I've downloaded it three times now.
posted by rtha at 6:07 AM on May 11, 2011

So... I upload the music to the cloud. And I can play it from the cloud. Both very cool.

Can I download it back from the cloud in its entirety if lose my local copy from a disk failure?

Is there any reason to think that Google wouldn't be happy to hand a copy of the catalog to the RIAA or similarly-motivated organizations merely for the asking?
posted by tyllwin at 6:07 AM on May 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

"A couple of the major labels were less focused on the innovative vision that we put forward, and more interested in an unreasonable and unsustainable set of business terms."

Oh do tell!!
posted by spicynuts at 6:08 AM on May 11, 2011 [6 favorites]

Awesome. Another site to blacklist on the proxy server at work.

I read the link and I still don't really understand what it does. I already have all my music in itunes, and I can listen to it and everything, and make playlists, etc.

It lets you put 20,000 songs onto google servers, and you can listen to them through a web browser.
posted by Threeway Handshake at 6:09 AM on May 11, 2011

YEA! SUCK IT, APPLE! Trying to get licenses from the labels.. oh you so sill-- MobileMe June what?

Thank you Apple for protecting me from using these awful services and providing your own (maybe).
posted by smackfu at 6:09 AM on May 11, 2011

We're sorry. Music Beta is currently only available in the United States

Meh. Do I care enough to get around it?
posted by Gordafarin at 6:10 AM on May 11, 2011

Oh do tell!!

UMG were the main company who screwed them over. Google have deals inked with 3 of the majors and almost all the indies. UMG is demanding per-stream royalties on people's own music, apparently.
posted by jaduncan at 6:11 AM on May 11, 2011

This looks like another half-assed me-too rollout from teh Google to me. They are becoming the Microsoft of web services.
posted by unSane at 6:11 AM on May 11, 2011 [4 favorites]

Anyway, I've had my "own music" in "the cloud" for a while. Thanks Mediafire.com!
posted by Threeway Handshake at 6:12 AM on May 11, 2011 [3 favorites]

I read the link and I still don't really understand what it does. I already have all my music in itunes, and I can listen to it and everything, and make playlists, etc.

It simply puts the equivalent of the iTunes library on the web, where you can listen to it from anywhere (namely on your Android phone or tablet).
posted by smackfu at 6:13 AM on May 11, 2011

One thing that seems weird to me is it's invite only. Amazon was able to open up their cloud player to anyone on day one. Surely Amazon doesn't have more server and network resources than Google? Why is Google doing a gradual rollout? Is that supposed to increase hype? Maybe limit legal liability?
posted by scottreynen at 6:17 AM on May 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

If they want to know what music I've pirated, they can pinch me or subpoena me.
posted by Trurl at 6:17 AM on May 11, 2011 [2 favorites]

parody-upload a bunch of enrico morricone and nmh, that will be my suicide note
posted by This, of course, alludes to you at 6:18 AM on May 11, 2011

Is that supposed to increase hype?

It worked for Google Wave -- there was a spike of people interested in checking it out and seeing what pundits were talking about, but the velvet rope at the door kept people craning their necks for a peek long after they would have otherwise rolled their eyes and walked away.

Not saying this is doomed or anything, but Google's done a number of launches this way, including gmail. It works for 'em.
posted by verb at 6:19 AM on May 11, 2011

Neither works on the iPhone, of course.

Amazon's sort of does. It's not feature-complete and the UI isn't great, but the basic music streaming functionality works.
posted by jedicus at 6:19 AM on May 11, 2011

It simply puts the equivalent of the iTunes library on the web

No FLAC then?
posted by Trurl at 6:20 AM on May 11, 2011

Upload your personal music collection...

Nice try, Google and RIAA.
posted by DU at 6:20 AM on May 11, 2011 [2 favorites]

Just throwing this out there: Subsonic / Audiogalaxy / Pulptunes work too, and no silly hype-building invite-only nonsense.
posted by mullingitover at 6:21 AM on May 11, 2011 [4 favorites]

Also, you can have all these features, minus the invasiveness and tattling, if you host them yourself. Ask a geeky friend to help.
posted by DU at 6:22 AM on May 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

One thing that seems weird to me is it's invite only. Amazon was able to open up their cloud player to anyone on day one. Surely Amazon doesn't have more server and network resources than Google? Why is Google doing a gradual rollout? Is that supposed to increase hype? Maybe limit legal liability?

Starting a small beta and expanding it via invites is the best way to do a resource-heavy rollout of a new system. Any scalability issues can be caught early and the invites are a way to ramp up users once the system is stable at that number of users.

Especially something like this. Those first beta users will show them what to expect. Will everybody upload 20k 320kbps songs and listen to them 24/7? Will people upload only their favorite songs and listen to them at work once in a while? Nobody is really sure of the average use case.
posted by Threeway Handshake at 6:22 AM on May 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

We're sorry. Music Beta is currently only available in the United States
Anyone have a workaround, after all people from America do travel so what happens then?
posted by adamvasco at 6:25 AM on May 11, 2011

I think Amazon and Google are bypassing the record companies by insisting that people are playing their own music files. The thing is that they will "compress" these files so they basically will be storing just a few versions of each song. They get the same result as if they licensed songs for streaming, but no need to talk to the record companies.
posted by bhnyc at 6:25 AM on May 11, 2011 [2 favorites]

Thanks Mediafire.com!

Filestube is the best thing since audiogalaxy.
posted by empath at 6:26 AM on May 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

Can you share songs?
posted by empath at 6:27 AM on May 11, 2011

Discerning music pirates choose Megaupload. Generous file sizes, no captchas, no waiting period between downloads.

Make Mine Megaupload™ .
posted by Trurl at 6:28 AM on May 11, 2011

my.mp3.com was better.
posted by polyhedron at 6:31 AM on May 11, 2011 [3 favorites]

So, is there really a way to tell if an uploaded song was pirated? /luddite
posted by CunningLinguist at 6:33 AM on May 11, 2011

After putting 500 GB of music on to CrashPlan, I have no intention of re-uploading it to anywhere else, thank you very much.
Let me know when the cloud is saturated with my music collection, uploaded by others, and I can just tap in to it by showing them what I have.
posted by Theta States at 6:33 AM on May 11, 2011

I used to use Simplifymedia on my iPhone. Then it up and disappeared one day. Now I know where it went.

Damn you, Google. You owe me a free account for that.
posted by sourwookie at 6:35 AM on May 11, 2011

Admittedly I live in the sticks where the band isn't terribly broad, but wouldn't it take months to upload 20,000 songs? And that's not really many files in this context.

I'm a fully paid up cloudist when it comes to small stuff - I use Dropbox, Github and S3 pretty heavily - but it seems like for huge media collections, there's a cart before the horse problem.

Also, you can have all these features, minus the invasiveness and tattling, if you host them yourself

Or get a Pogoplug - the (admittedly stupid-looking) device takes care of all the hosting stuff for you. I think I just persuaded myself to get one, in fact.
posted by jack_mo at 6:35 AM on May 11, 2011 [2 favorites]

So, is there really a way to tell if an uploaded song was pirated? /luddite

Depends on whether you remove the comment in the tags that says "Ripped by so-and-so".
posted by smackfu at 6:36 AM on May 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

Haters going to hate, but this is nothing but a Good Thing for a huge company like Google to finally say, "Hey record companies? We're tired of waiting around for you to get comfortable with lower profit margins. I know, you want everyone to pay for every song on every device, but it is no longer 1969 dearies. But here's the deal, there's seriously a ton of people in the US and if you get comfortable with the fact that not ever song is accounted for, there's piles of money out there."

With Hulu and that Amazon video service thing, Netflix for whatever low price it is now, other media companies are beginning to see the writing on the wall. Music industry is still pissing on the fact there's iTunes.
posted by geoff. at 6:36 AM on May 11, 2011 [7 favorites]

Haters going to hate, but this is nothing but a Good Thing for a huge company like Google to finally say, "Hey record companies? We're tired of waiting around for you to get comfortable with lower profit margins. I know, you want everyone to pay for every song on every device, but it is no longer 1969 dearies. But here's the deal, there's seriously a ton of people in the US and if you get comfortable with the fact that not ever song is accounted for, there's piles of money out there."

I agree with the sentiment, but I'm going to refrain from judging (good or bad) until I see how this is really going to work...
posted by inigo2 at 6:38 AM on May 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

Anyone have a pointer to a good, free, US proxy to sign up with then?
posted by aychedee at 6:38 AM on May 11, 2011

Theta States, that was 11 years ago at my.mp3.com. Greed upheld innovation for a decade as far as I can tell.
posted by polyhedron at 6:38 AM on May 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

upheld? Too early.
posted by polyhedron at 6:39 AM on May 11, 2011

I already do stream my music for free :)

I use subsonic - a java server that's fairly easy to setup.

I used to use jinzora, and before that zina.

If anyone wants a self-hosted streaming server I'd recommend one of these. I prefer subsonic for its ease of setup.

That said, I'm glad google and amazon are pushing for cloud storage of music. It's just a real shame you can't autodetect your library or something and have them autohost without uploading. But again - stupid RIAA...

nthing polyhedron - poor michael robertson (wasn't that his name?) of mp3.com... he was ahead of his time, and not powerful enough financially to fight off the titans.
posted by symbioid at 6:43 AM on May 11, 2011 [8 favorites]

Threeway Handshake: "Awesome. Another site to blacklist on the proxy server at work.

I read the link and I still don't really understand what it does. I already have all my music in itunes, and I can listen to it and everything, and make playlists, etc.

It lets you put 20,000 songs onto google servers, and you can listen to them through a web browser"

As long as they're not at wherever you work! (I'm glad I get to run my own shit at work! :))
posted by symbioid at 6:45 AM on May 11, 2011

my.mp3.com was better

Remember MP3.com sponsoring an Alanis Morissette tour in 1999?

All things old are new again...

We've heard whispers about [Lady] Gaga spending several hours shooting a commercial for Google in New York last weekend--just before the launch of Google Music. It's hard not to connect the dots and imagine a possible partnership between Gaga and Google for cross-promotion--wouldn't be the first time, actually.
posted by Trurl at 6:46 AM on May 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

Starting a small beta and expanding it via invites is the best way to do a resource-heavy rollout of a new system. Any scalability issues can be caught early and the invites are a way to ramp up users once the system is stable at that number of users.

That makes sense for almost anyone, but not Google. Consider the huge traffic spikes and large media files they already deal with to run Google.com, Gmail.com, YouTube.com, Google Voice, Google Docs, and so on. None of those Google services have apparent scalability issues, and none have arbitrary limits on who can sign up. I don't think the invites was a technical decision.
posted by scottreynen at 6:48 AM on May 11, 2011

I already have grooveshark, which lets me stream anyone's songs. What's google offering that's new?
posted by Eideteker at 6:48 AM on May 11, 2011 [2 favorites]

Remember MP3.com sponsoring an Alanis Morissette tour in 1999?

All things old are new again...

Isn't it ironic?
posted by schmod at 6:50 AM on May 11, 2011 [5 favorites]

That makes sense for almost anyone, but not Google.

Exactly. There is no way you can deploy a product at Google without it already being massively scalable building on their existing architecture. Limited invites are basically throwing away the press they are getting now.
posted by smackfu at 6:52 AM on May 11, 2011

scottreynen, consider that Gmail, Google Voice, and Google Docs started out with invites. I don't know how Google organizes their servers, whether new services draw from a shared pool of bandwidth and processing or if they're on "islands," but Google seems to like invites for either technical and/or marketing purposes.

I think they also like invites as they can learn how people use the service, and then figure out where they can advertise without upsetting people enough that they'll leave but still get enough people to click the ads to get ad revenue.
posted by mccarty.tim at 6:52 AM on May 11, 2011

I was reading about this over at Balloon Juice this morning. Some interesting observations.
posted by NoMich at 6:57 AM on May 11, 2011 [2 favorites]

Interesting. No .ogg files allowed but it will transcode your .FLAC files on upload.
posted by adipocere at 6:58 AM on May 11, 2011

I think the beta/invite phase has more to do with customer support than anything else.
posted by empath at 6:59 AM on May 11, 2011

Of course, Google was a much smaller company when Gmail rolled out, and it was one of their first non-search products. It was also a massive increase in storage and features for an existing webmail program at the time, IIRC. Google Voice has potentially expensive features for Google to pay for (I remember they had to block third party conference call lines which were initially free to users but cost Google too much to keep Voice free). So I guess they had better reasons for those than this.

I think invites here are 90% for hype, a bit like what happened with Google Wave, although invites kind of helped ruin Wave, as it ended up being like the videophone dilemma, where invites were hard to get and when you did get one, there was nobody to talk to. It didn't help that the service was so complex nobody but Google engineers knew how to do more than scratch the surface and have it do more than basic IMing.
posted by mccarty.tim at 7:01 AM on May 11, 2011

scottreynen: "None of those Google services have apparent scalability issues, and none have arbitrary limits on who can sign up."

And yet many of these systems were invite based. The invite system works! More seriously, mapreduce and bigtable doesn't magically solve algorithmic problems. If you've got a high exponent hiding in there, it's still a problem. Or if you've got just big problem that angries up users, you have a lot less hatemail coming in about the same problem over and over.

I don't think the invites was a technical decision.

Probably a combination of factors. Scalability testing, "buzz" generation, and maybe even a limitation on how much they can afford to give away for free. Another important factor to invites is the social system. More adventuresome people learn your system, and then share invites among less adventuresome friends, who now have a friend they can ask for help. Free tech support in exchange for early access! Such a system would likely distribute more invites to heavy users and users who have tried and use more of the features.
posted by pwnguin at 7:01 AM on May 11, 2011 [2 favorites]

I love the Slashdot-circa-1999 idea that this is some kind of big conspiracy on the part of Google to turn your pirated Green Day mp3s over to the RIAA. Yes, that's right....the same RIAA that refused to cooperate with Google so that it could sell its music. Why would Google do this? Have they ever shown any interest in policing copyright in the past?
posted by nasreddin at 7:02 AM on May 11, 2011

From Balloon Juice:

This brings us to all the uploading Google Music customers will be doing. All the excitement over “cloud services” and “music lockers” ignores one little fact of US Internet service: it’s extremely asymmetrical. Our upload speed is usually about 10 times slower than our download speed.

This has to do with the way that things like ADSL (AsymmetricDSL) work, more than any kind of capacity issue. We actually have plenty of capacity to support customers uploading more stuff. We can and do sell Symmetric DSL, but most people don't want to sacrifice download speed for upload speed.
posted by empath at 7:04 AM on May 11, 2011

Make it scrobble to Last.fm and I'll use the hell out of it, if only for listening at work without having to carry a HDD player around.
posted by statolith at 7:05 AM on May 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

a lot less hatemail coming in about the same problem over and over

Heh, you'd think so, but I'm pretty sure Google doesn't actually read their mail.
posted by ryanrs at 7:06 AM on May 11, 2011

So, here's a semi-unrelated question: Why is Grooveshark so awesome yet still allowed to exist by the RIAA? I mean, a huge library (of both popular and eclectic music) on demand, plus capacity to upload songs they don't have? With the ability to make playlists to save for later? And seemingly no limit?

It makes Pandora look like some relic from a paranoid record label.
posted by mccarty.tim at 7:13 AM on May 11, 2011

This is swell and all, but since I do most of my non-home music listening in an area without a computer, it's not all that meaningful to me. I'm not saying it wouldn't be handy on occaision (song stuck in head at work, want to play one album for friend, that sort of thing) but my iPod actually serves most of these functions.

All I'm trying to say is for this interation of "average listener", this doesn't seem that exciting. I'm not sure what would be - the idea of detecting your library and autopopulating would be one step in the right direction, though. This just seems like a good way to slow the internet connection at work down even more.

That's not to say I'm not curious... if an invite comes my way, I'll certainly play with it.
posted by maryr at 7:13 AM on May 11, 2011

Yes, that's right....the same RIAA that refused to cooperate with Google so that it could sell its music. Why would Google do this? Have they ever shown any interest in policing copyright in the past?

The RIAA? Yes. That's why Youtube developed the algorithmic detection engine and deployed it, after all. Any reason the same legal pressure won't be applied here?
posted by pwnguin at 7:15 AM on May 11, 2011

mccarty.tim: "So, here's a semi-unrelated question: Why is Grooveshark so awesome yet still allowed to exist by the RIAA? "

Well luckily the RIAA doesn't have the power to just arbitrarily shut down whatever web site displeases them. They have to operate within the framework of the law, and the DMCA says that a host isn't liable for the actions of its users as long as it responds to lawful DMCA takedown notices from content owners.
posted by mullingitover at 7:17 AM on May 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

The RIAA? Yes. That's why Youtube developed the algorithmic detection engine and deployed it, after all. Any reason the same legal pressure won't be applied here?

Because this isn't a sharing service, it's a personal file storage service with a streaming app attached. It's not even illegal to possess a pirated mp3, the violation comes only when you've made it available to others (which is why the RIAA has been able to charge such massive damages).
posted by nasreddin at 7:19 AM on May 11, 2011

I'm one of the ones who raised the spectre of the RIAA, and no, I don't think Google is at all interested in being the copyright police. I'm sure they are unwilling to take on that role except under duress. I'd just like to know whether anyone thinks they are equally unwilling to simply roll over and hand out data as the path of least resistance and greatest economy when the RIAA inevitably comes around and demands the identity and complete catalogs of every user. Is Google willing to fight that out in court to the bitter end?
posted by tyllwin at 7:21 AM on May 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

There is no way you can deploy a product at Google without it already being massively scalable building on their existing architecture.

You're trolling right?
posted by Threeway Handshake at 7:24 AM on May 11, 2011

Why is Grooveshark so awesome yet still allowed to exist by the RIAA?

I always wonder about this too. Since discovering Grooveshark I haven't downloaded or bought a single piece of music in a year and a half. Now I pay 3 bucks a month or something for the app on my phone and my Ipod touch has been collecting dust.
posted by windbox at 7:24 AM on May 11, 2011

To answer the question "why?" look at Google's product line: Android and ChromeOS. On a ChromeOS based machine you don't have gobs of storage for your tunes so you put them in the cloud. On Android devices you buy a new one every few years so cloud storage keeps you from losing your music when you change devices.

This is nt a product in and of itself but a stepping stone toward the future.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 7:24 AM on May 11, 2011 [4 favorites]

I'm one of the ones who raised the spectre of the RIAA, and no, I don't think Google is at all interested in being the copyright police. I'm sure they are unwilling to take on that role except under duress. I'd just like to know whether anyone thinks they are equally unwilling to simply roll over and hand out data as the path of least resistance and greatest economy when the RIAA inevitably comes around and demands the identity and complete catalogs of every user. Is Google willing to fight that out in court to the bitter end?

Again, having a pirated mp3 in your possession is not illegal. (What's the definition of a pirated mp3, anyway? It's not like iTunes music isn't routinely shared on filesharing networks.) The RIAA would only have a case if you were handing out your Google Music account info to random passersby.

The difference with YouTube is that the primary (intended) purpose of YouTube isn't listening to music playing over static photographs, it's watching (freely and voluntarily) shared content such as cat videos. I don't think Google is intending its users to upload 20,000 mp3s of their dad trying to play "Stairway" at Guitar Center.
posted by nasreddin at 7:29 AM on May 11, 2011

Google Music: Not Available in Canada
Amazon MP3: Not Available in Canada
Amazon On Demand: Not Available in Canada
Spotify: Not Available in Canada
Netflix: Not Available in Canada Available, but has very limited content.
iTunes Video: Not Available in Canada Available, but has very limited content.

Yep, sure is a great time to live in Canada!
posted by blue_beetle at 7:34 AM on May 11, 2011 [4 favorites]

This isn't a product in and of itself but a stepping stone toward the future.

I'm having trouble letting go of the old paradigm that a computer is a device with files and programs on it. It's odd feeling like a complete luddite in the face of all this cloud stuff, but I guess that's where we are headed eventually. A home computer is going to become a dumb terminal with apps & files stored in a huge central repository, (the old 80's idea of mainframes and terminals has moved outside of physical walls due to high speed internet access) and this is all a step in that direction.

The internet is just becoming one huge decentralized mainframe, and our desktop and laptop machines are becoming dumb terminals. Continuous connectivity concerns me, but probably in the same way that continuous electricity concerned people that were slow to switch from lanterns to light bulbs.
posted by Devils Rancher at 7:36 AM on May 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

CunningLinguist: So, is there really a way to tell if an uploaded song was pirated? /luddite

Beyond this, someone could theoretically compare your files to other files in The Cloud or that are available online, and if they find them to be identical, they could say "Aha, copies!" -- assuming those files weren't legally purchased versions from a site that doesn't embed information into your files (It's not only iTunes; Amazon also does, and in plain text).
posted by filthy light thief at 7:37 AM on May 11, 2011

blue_beetle: "Google Music: Not Available in Canada
Amazon MP3: Not Available in Canada
Amazon On Demand: Not Available in Canada
Spotify: Not Available in Canada
Netflix: Not Available in Canada Available, but has very limited content.
iTunes Video: Not Available in Canada Available, but has very limited content.

Yep, sure is a great time to live in Canada!"

Peer-to-peer filesharing: very available in Canada
posted by mullingitover at 7:38 AM on May 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

Yep, sure is a great time to live in Canada!
With all the download caps there, it is in your best interests that you can't get to any of these things.
posted by Threeway Handshake at 7:38 AM on May 11, 2011 [2 favorites]

blue_beetle: "Google Music: Not Available in Canada
Amazon MP3: Not Available in Canada
Amazon On Demand: Not Available in Canada
Spotify: Not Available in Canada
Netflix: Not Available in Canada Available, but has very limited content.
iTunes Video: Not Available in Canada Available, but has very limited content.

Yep, sure is a great time to live in Canada!"

But you have a great healthcare system and I like you views on gun control and taxes...(granted I live in the US and it might be a case of "grass is greener"
posted by photodegas at 7:39 AM on May 11, 2011

DU writes "Also, you can have all these features, minus the invasiveness and tattling, if you host them yourself. Ask a geeky friend to help."

The playlist generation feature isn't something you'll be able to easily whip up depending on how smart it is.

scottreynen writes "That makes sense for almost anyone, but not Google. Consider the huge traffic spikes and large media files they already deal with to run Google.com, Gmail.com, YouTube.com, Google Voice, Google Docs, and so on. None of those Google services have apparent scalability issues, and none have arbitrary limits on who can sign up. I don't think the invites was a technical decision."

Gmail did when it first rolled out and there were problems a plenty.
posted by Mitheral at 7:41 AM on May 11, 2011

And, see previously: Amazon and the RIAA go head to head over the Amazon Cloud Player (plus "the turbulent history of the humble MP3"), wherein everything old was new again, before. Along with the alternatives listed in this thread already, there are MP3Tune and mSpot, both existing services that have wider support than what both Amazon or Google are touting.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:41 AM on May 11, 2011

Again, having a pirated mp3 in your possession is not illegal

True. But it could be civilly seized, along with your computer, yes? And making a copy of it by uploading it to Google Music? You going to pay anyone's legal bills in defending that?

But why assume that I am bothered by the worry of well-founded lawsuits from the RIAA? My logic goes like this: I think they are greedy and hostile to me. I think they may may file entirely meritless lawsuits against entirely innocent people, and rely on the high costs of a legal defense and the hugely draconian and disproportionate statutory damages to extort settlements out of people. Exactly as they do today.

How far will Google go to avoid helping them in that racket? Especially if that help is a precondition for some sort of money-making deal for Google?
posted by tyllwin at 7:44 AM on May 11, 2011

It's odd feeling like a complete luddite in the face of all this cloud stuff

"Cloud" is just marketing speak for "the internet." Don't let them fool you.
posted by polyhedron at 7:44 AM on May 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'm having trouble letting go of the old paradigm that a computer is a device with files and programs on it.

I see no reason to trust anything that's cloud-based with data I deem important. I could see maybe using a service like this for streaming to where ever I happen to be (although that's not really how my life is structured), but I have a raft of external drives with a bunch of stuff on them for a reason. Seen too many things online just go away over the decades not to have my own local storage.
posted by hippybear at 7:45 AM on May 11, 2011

Well luckily the RIAA doesn't have the power to just arbitrarily shut down whatever web site displeases them. They have to operate within the framework of the law, and the DMCA says that a host isn't liable for the actions of its users as long as it responds to lawful DMCA takedown notices from content owners.
posted by mullingitover at 10:17 AM on May 11 [+] [!]

Dont be too sure, Senator Leahy has some thoughts on that...(granted he has been shilling for the RIAA/MPAA for a while now...
posted by photodegas at 7:46 AM on May 11, 2011

True. But it could be civilly seized, along with your computer, yes? And making a copy of it by uploading it to Google Music? You going to pay anyone's legal bills in defending that?

But why assume that I am bothered by the worry of well-founded lawsuits from the RIAA? My logic goes like this: I think they are greedy and hostile to me. I think they may may file entirely meritless lawsuits against entirely innocent people, and rely on the high costs of a legal defense and the hugely draconian and disproportionate statutory damages to extort settlements out of people. Exactly as they do today.

The statutory damages are based on the theory that by making something available for download online, you've cost the company as many sales as there were copies of the file downloaded. Damages are based on the medium, not anything inherent about the file.

Also, this discussion is quite academic, since the RIAA stopped suing file sharers years ago.
posted by nasreddin at 7:49 AM on May 11, 2011

gah, and of course - as soon as i posted this, i go to log in at work to my subsonic server and can't access it. I have a feeling my home network is down. ugh.

and being that i'm here and not there, i can't fix it.

so that's a downside to homeserving. then again. amazon cloud services went down earlier this year and affected massive sites like reddit, so... they are not immune either.

i still think the home server approach is a good idea. the only downside is no "apps" for phones (afaik) for these servers which might leave them a little more limited in what they can do for portability.
posted by symbioid at 7:49 AM on May 11, 2011

Why the obsession with "your" music? I've got Spotify, which gives me everyone's music, including the killer-feature social playlists. For the handful of stuff that isn't on there?
posted by bonaldi at 7:50 AM on May 11, 2011

photodegas: "Dont be too sure, Senator Leahy has some thoughts on that...(granted he has been shilling for the RIAA/MPAA for a while now..."

If we're going to take carrier responsibility to its logical conclusion, I look forward to the telephone companies being held liable for their role in facilitating communication in the planning of crimes.
posted by mullingitover at 7:51 AM on May 11, 2011

I don't understand how the RIAA hasn't sued all the filesharing sites like mediafire, 4shared, etc. It seems they all only exist for the purpose of facilitating piracy.
posted by empath at 7:52 AM on May 11, 2011

Suing everybody takes time. They'll get around to it.
posted by Wolfdog at 7:55 AM on May 11, 2011

tyllwin: "Can I download it back from the cloud in its entirety if lose my local copy from a disk failure? "

Amazon's version works that way.

My main complaint with Amazon's offering is that it's very much music-focused only. You can put files and such there, but only with a painstaking one-at-a-time approach. Which is a shame, because if they improved the front end, I could see subscribing to the larger storage space options as a backup utility, like a manually-wrangled Mozy or Carbonite or whatnot.
posted by Drastic at 7:56 AM on May 11, 2011

Drastic, use Dropbox for that.
posted by empath at 7:56 AM on May 11, 2011 [2 favorites]

I've got Spotify

Spotify is pretty much Europe only.

And I doubt it has EVERYONE's music. I have some long-tail stuff that, if it actually has available, I'll eat my hat. Look for Mel Brown "Eighteen Pounds Of Unclean Chitlins" and let me know.
posted by hippybear at 8:04 AM on May 11, 2011 [2 favorites]

"Cloud" is just marketing speak for "the internet." Don't let them fool you.

Well, I meant specifically cloud file storage, and cloud-based apps, like Google docs, Adobe's weird stab an their cloud-based suite, (whatsit called? did they already ditch it?), Gmail, etc. Old paradigm -- all that is local. New paradigm -- all you need is a browser and a connection. I dunno why I'm vaguely uncomfortable about surrendering all my apps and files to a browser-based universe, aside from privacy and access, but I am.

Maybe it's the general worry that on day X Google can say "Whoops, not profitable! You've got from Day X+10 to either save or lose you files, because we're pulling the plug." I subscribe to Flickr, but it is absolutely not what I depend on for archiving my photos. I think we've got a ways to go for business models to shake out in ways that won't leave people high and dry. I don't want to wire my betamax for DC. If Apple goes out of business tomorrow, iTunes will still work on my desktop.

I dunno -- just musing. You guys go early-adopt or not, and I'll watch and see what works.
posted by Devils Rancher at 8:05 AM on May 11, 2011

So if I don't have an android device or a smart phone, is there any reason for me to use this? I already have my 100GB music collection synchronized across all my computers.


My main complaint with Amazon's offering is that it's very much music-focused only.

There are a number of interfaces for Amazon S3 that let you interact with it like a remote disk, including Amazon's own AWS web management console.

The thing about music is that lots of people have the same mp3s. Amazon says they're storing 20 GB of music for you, but unless you ripped your own CDs into mp3s it's likely that 17 GB that overlaps with other users' collections. There's a big win in storage overlap for Amazon, and that wouldn't happen if using it as more general purpose file storage.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 8:07 AM on May 11, 2011

Thanks again Corporate Overlords for routing all our traffic from the US through the Canada server.

/hamburger
posted by Big_B at 8:08 AM on May 11, 2011

Spotify is pretty much Europe only.

And I doubt it has EVERYONE's music. I have some long-tail stuff that, if it actually has available, I'll eat my hat. Look for Mel Brown "Eighteen Pounds Of Unclean Chitlins" and let me know.

They're still trying to launch in the USA. Hopefully you'll get it soon.

Spotify does have some pretty good long-tail stuff, as well as the more popular. It has maybe 90% of what I want, and the other 10% I can just copy onto my phone as MP3s (and listen via Spotify>Local Music).

As an overall point, I think bonaldi is right: Google's offering 20K songs that I have to upload from my own collection. Spotify offers around 10 million songs, that I don't have to upload. No real comparison.
posted by Infinite Jest at 8:15 AM on May 11, 2011

I doubt it has EVERYONE's music. I have some long-tail stuff that, if it actually has available, I'll eat my hat. Look for Mel Brown "Eighteen Pounds Of Unclean Chitlins" and let me know.

No, doesn't have that, but does have a load of his albums. Ideally someday it would do, but what I pragmatically mean by "everyone" is that it has the 90% of stuff that most people will be looking for.

So, now, instead of worrying about some bloated 90gb monster of a music library, I can just keep the special sauce music that's genuinely rare or special, and rely on Spotify for the rest. My current portable Mac has only a 64gb internal disk, which would be unusable in pre-Spotify days.

The latest clients even let you manage it all through Spotify, so you need barely darken iTunes's door again (hurrah).

on preview: what infinite jest said.
posted by bonaldi at 8:18 AM on May 11, 2011

PogoPlugs are alright, especially for the price. Just wanted to put my oar in.
posted by everichon at 8:23 AM on May 11, 2011

OK, nasreddin, I'll agree that so long as you have the RIAA's forbearance you have no worries. I'm just a touch worried that this forbearance could vanish instantly if there's any money in it. And that Google may not want to spend any money, or lose any money arguing the point. If that's a conspiracy theory from 1999, I guess I'll just go watch The X-Files.
posted by tyllwin at 8:23 AM on May 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

Again, having a pirated mp3 in your possession is not illegal. (What's the definition of a pirated mp3, anyway? It's not like iTunes music isn't routinely shared on filesharing networks.) The RIAA would only have a case if you were handing out your Google Music account info to random passersby.

It's not that simple, though. Technically Amazon/Google would be violating copyright every time they stream the song to you from your own collection. Or even when you stream off your hard drive. Because "copying" means any copy made inside an electronic system according to the RIAA. That's supposedly why software licenses are legal: You own the bits but in order to use the software you have to 'make copies' inside your computer.
posted by delmoi at 8:27 AM on May 11, 2011

A lot of people chipped in by now looking at the preview, but i'll post anyway.

hippybear, re: spotify, there's of course the long tail factor (i do suffer it too, and your example is not in their catalog btw), but you'd be surprised to see all the seemingly obscure stuff they do carry.

Anyway, spotify is a different beast, and a much more interesting one in my opinion, because it really has the potential to completely replace your music library, it has for a lot of people i know. Google music seems pretty bland, the only benefit i can see is streaming to your phone, otherwise it's relatively easy to keep your library synced in multiple computers, and there's always youtube for the casual need of a specific song/record.

I was pretty skeptical of spotify totally replacing my music library, but i keep using spotify more and more and downloading records less and less (i still do, though, because like everything else in the cloud it appears/re-appears frequently and very randomly). But spotify can index and play local files, so the distinction is blurrying a bit (and they do "link" your local files to the ones they have on catalog, so you can add a local song to a playlist and still have it on your phone if it's available, or to show up in the playlist if a friend of yours also has it locally).

I hope the spotify model is the future, they could even let you upload your files and get the best of both worlds (the record labels wouldn't let them, most likely).

grooveshark sucks, though, crappy clients and non-curated content, blegh
posted by palbo at 8:29 AM on May 11, 2011

On a good note, something like this will make sure my personal soundtrack is available for broadcast where ever I am, regardless of if I remembered my mp3 player or not.

Whether or not people want to listen to it being completely irrelevant.

*Plays Tone Lōc's Wild Thing*

*does wacky montage sequence*
posted by quin at 8:29 AM on May 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

Anyway, I think these cloud solutions are actually kind of a bad deal for users. It would be better to offer simple cloud services that just store and retrive files, like S3. In fact, if you use S3 you can actually share files really easily. I've had S3Fox installed in firefox for years and you can right click to change the permissions on an S3 file to allow anyone to access it. You have to pay for the bandwidth, but for simple person to person sharing it's completely negotiable.

It would be easy to make a 'local' Mp3 cloud player that let you stream *and share* music built on S3 that. In fact you could even do it as a web app that interacted with your personal S3 account.

The thing about music is that lots of people have the same mp3s. Amazon says they're storing 20 GB of music for you, but unless you ripped your own CDs into mp3s it's likely that 17 GB that overlaps with other users' collections. There's a big win in storage overlap for Amazon, and that wouldn't happen if using it as more general purpose file storage.

Is there any evidence they are actually doing this? I suppose it's technically possible but Amazon storage is so cheap they might not be bothering
posted by delmoi at 8:33 AM on May 11, 2011

I came in here to say this

polyhedron: "my.mp3.com was better"

and this

symbioid: " nthing polyhedron - poor michael robertson (wasn't that his name?) of mp3.com... he was ahead of his time, and not powerful enough financially to fight off the titans."

God I loved that service. Favorited this thread because of all the alternatives linked to. Thanks, y'all!
posted by yiftach at 8:42 AM on May 11, 2011

US Only. ;(
Also, a long way to go to replace my combo of CDs, vinyl, spotify and last.fm.
posted by gonzo_ID at 8:50 AM on May 11, 2011

Watching the stream from Google I/O (about the related Tungsten project) yesterday, the thing that got people really insanely excited was the demo of holding a QR code from a CD up to a scanner, and it immediately adds the CD to your Music Beta account, and can begin playing it, no upload needed. This is *exactly* what my.mp3.com did, and they got a massive slap down from the courts about it. And Google will too, because now there is legal precedent. Google might try taking it all the way to the Supreme Court, where they will be met by the insanely pro business court of Roberts/Alito/Scalia/etc. Good luck with that one Google.

There were some pretty cool things shown at Google I/O yesterday, but 100% of it has already been done in one form or another already (home automation, streaming networked music players a la Squeezebox/Sonos, cloud music service ala Amazon or my.mp3.com before it). There's probably some stuff that will stick out of these announcements, but it remains to be seen what if any of it will.

Music Beta has a bumpy road in front of it, mostly for content and legal reasons.
posted by mcstayinskool at 8:55 AM on May 11, 2011

Is there any evidence they are actually doing this? I suppose it's technically possible but Amazon storage is so cheap they might not be bothering

There's no way to tell, short of engineering a hash collision, but I think it's quite likely.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 8:56 AM on May 11, 2011

This is *exactly* what my.mp3.com did, and they got a massive slap down from the courts about it. And Google will too, because now there is legal precedent.

Google wants to pay royalties for it, the record companies refused to approve it, that's why it's not allowed yet.
posted by empath at 9:00 AM on May 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

Google might try taking it all the way to the Supreme Court, where they will be met by the insanely pro business court of Roberts/Alito/Scalia/etc.

Is Google not a business?
posted by empath at 9:01 AM on May 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

Is Google not a business?

To that crowd? Sure, but it's that internet stuff. Not a real business.
posted by tyllwin at 9:05 AM on May 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

It's funny how I'm instinctively uneasy about this. I see this and immediately I'm, "Keep yer hands off mah music!"
posted by LMGM at 9:07 AM on May 11, 2011

To clarify, "pro business" means protecting things like patents and copyrights. In those eyes, RIAA is the business, Google is the usurper.
posted by mcstayinskool at 9:08 AM on May 11, 2011 [2 favorites]

I don't understand how the RIAA hasn't sued all the filesharing sites like mediafire, 4shared, etc. It seems they all only exist for the purpose of facilitating piracy.

The MPAA has gone after Hotfile.

It may be the same situation as the torrent sites. As soon as you shut down one of them, others will pop up to take its place.
posted by Trurl at 9:10 AM on May 11, 2011

It would be interesting to see Google unleash their war chest and simply buy the majority of the RIAA members and give away their catalogs (to everyone except Apple). It would be one way of breaking Apple's death grip on the music market...
posted by mullingitover at 9:11 AM on May 11, 2011

Apple has a death grip on the music market?

Amazon certainly seems to have a very healthy digital music service with pricing which is its own.
posted by hippybear at 9:19 AM on May 11, 2011

This cant be good, but welcome to the US Congress which "writes" laws depending on how much money you donate...
Bad laws here
posted by photodegas at 9:31 AM on May 11, 2011 [2 favorites]

As an overall point, I think bonaldi is right: Google's offering 20K songs that I have to upload from my own collection. Spotify offers around 10 million songs, that I don't have to upload. No real comparison.

20k songs of your choice is preferable to 10 million shitty songs thrown around by what passes for a music industry these days. To me, anyway.
posted by kafziel at 9:54 AM on May 11, 2011 [2 favorites]

hippybear: "Apple has a death grip on the music market? "

Uh...
posted by mullingitover at 9:54 AM on May 11, 2011

20k songs of your choice is preferable to 10 million shitty songs thrown around by what passes for a music industry these days. To me, anyway.

If you've got 20k songs that have no overlap with what's on Spotify I'll eat hippybear's hat.
posted by bonaldi at 9:59 AM on May 11, 2011 [3 favorites]

I just don’t understand why anyone cares about this, or any of these similar "cloud" services.

I have an ipod.
I don’t need an internet connection for it.
I don’t need to deal with Google.
How is this easier or better?
posted by bongo_x at 10:05 AM on May 11, 2011

We're sorry. Music Beta is currently only available in the United States

Does the RIAA have teeth outside the United States? Just musing...
posted by howling fantods at 10:07 AM on May 11, 2011

Why would I want this? Even my phone has 32GB of storage, allowing me to bring along all my 5-star rated songs (My music collection is 170GB and growing), every single episode of Arrested Development, Black Books, Futurama and The IT Crowd. Why do I need the cloud for this?

Besides, you can't even get DSL on my road and I have to drive 20 miles to get a 3G signal.
posted by dunkadunc at 10:21 AM on May 11, 2011

"Apple has a death grip on the music market? "

Uh...

That article is nearly a year old, and indicates that Amazon's market share for digital downloads was growing at that time.

Besides, dominating a market isn't the same as having a death grip on it. There are plenty of competitors to Apple selling music for download online. At considerably better prices, too. That they aren't better known is a failure of communication, not a death grip.
posted by hippybear at 10:22 AM on May 11, 2011

I just don’t understand why anyone cares about this, or any of these similar "cloud" services.

I have an ipod.
I don’t need an internet connection for it.
I don’t need to deal with Google.
How is this easier or better?

Because iPods are headed for the exit. I have a phone with me all the time, why would I need an iPod too?
posted by smackfu at 10:28 AM on May 11, 2011

Anyway, I've had my "own music" in "the cloud" for a while. Thanks Dropbox.com Mediafire.com!

I prefer something like Audiogalaxy, which lets you stream all your music on one computer to many. For uploading, I'm just gonna use Dropbox.

Discerning music pirates choose Megaupload. Generous file sizes, no captchas, no waiting period between downloads.

Megaupload has a 45-second waiting period for every file. Don't you mean Mediafire?

Is that supposed to increase hype?

It worked for Google Wave

Say that again. This time, listen to yourself say it.

I don't understand how the RIAA hasn't sued all the filesharing sites like mediafire, 4shared, etc. It seems they all only exist for the purpose of facilitating piracy.

Probably waiting to see how Viacom v Google shakes out. Right now, it's looking pretty good for the services.

Re: Music Google Beta (horrible name): Along with the 20,000 song limit (which is considerable), is there a file-size limit? Or could I upload 20,000 hour-long tracks?

As for paying for Spotify (or paying for Last.fm, etc.), I don't really see how it's practically any different than using file-sharing/downloading from the Internet. You're not paying the artists anything. It's probably even worse. Downloaders actually buy music; I doubt Spotify users do.

Spotify will never be "the model" because it doesn't compensate artists enough.
posted by mrgrimm at 10:39 AM on May 11, 2011

I think what Google are going for is more in the line of.making it very very easy to switch your devices. Pretty much sign in on your Google account on you phone, tablet, dish washer or light fixture* and you music is available instantly or with a bit of wait if you want some of it locally.

Dedicated music players are sooo 2007

* coming soon with Google tungsten
posted by Greald at 10:50 AM on May 11, 2011

Since switching to an online music service (Grooveshark) I no longer have to copy music from my home server to various music devices, choosing which songs make the cut. I don't feel any need to rip the CDs I hadn't gotten around to either.
posted by zippy at 10:52 AM on May 11, 2011

In this era of bandwidth caps on both my mobile device and my home connection, I would totally rather stream music than have a 128GB iPhone (or larger) that could hold all my media locally. In fact, I can see no downside to thi

+++
NO CARRIER (BANDWIDTH EXCEEDED)
posted by entropicamericana at 11:00 AM on May 11, 2011 [2 favorites]

local storage is only on the way out if you let them say so. what they want is to get you used to letting them be in control of your media, instead of you- stuffing the "people in control of their own media" genie back in the bottle.

the powers that be would love it if we had to pay for everything.
posted by dunkadunc at 11:01 AM on May 11, 2011 [2 favorites]

Because iPods are headed for the exit. I have a phone with me all the time, why would I need an iPod too?

I don't have a phone with me all the time; I don't want a phone with me all the time; and my iPod doesn't charge me $35/month -- or whatever the iPhone data rate is these days -- to play me my music.

(Although yes, I realize that "I don't have a cellphone" is becoming an increasingly eccentric stance.)
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 11:12 AM on May 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

It worked for Google Wave

Say that again. This time, listen to yourself say it.

I think you misunderstand what I meant: the invite mechanism gave Google Wave a much longer cycle of buzz than it would have otherwise enjoyed, drawing out the process of evaluating and subsequently rejecting the app into a cycle of yearning, euphoria, cognitive dissonance, and denial.
posted by verb at 11:15 AM on May 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

I don't have a phone with me all the time; I don't want a phone with me all the time; and my iPod doesn't charge me $35/month -- or whatever the iPhone data rate is these days -- to play me my music.

(Although yes, I realize that "I don't have a cellphone" is becoming an increasingly eccentric stance.)

I don't see why you feel the need to tell us. Clearly this is a product aimed at people with smartphones, who usually have unlimited data plans of some kind. Do you pop into HBO threads to tell everyone how you don't own a TV?
posted by nasreddin at 11:16 AM on May 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

If you've got 20k songs that have no overlap with what's on Spotify I'll eat hippybear's hat.

My point is that having access to 10 million songs doesn't mean a thing. What matters is how many songs you have access to that you like.
posted by kafziel at 11:16 AM on May 11, 2011

I don't see why you feel the need to tell us. Clearly this is a product aimed at people with smartphones, who usually have unlimited data plans of some kind. Do you pop into HBO threads to tell everyone how you don't own a TV?

To be fair, he was commenting on the sweeping pronunciations that "local storage is on the way out." If you'd been discussing a new subscription television service, and boldly announced that ad-funded television would soon be dead, he wouldn't exactly be out of line for noting that he'd be continuing to use traditional services.

Saying, "Well, dead FOR PEOPLE NOT LIKE YOU" is fine, but it's a bit of goalpost shifting.
posted by verb at 11:19 AM on May 11, 2011 [2 favorites]

To be fair, he was commenting on the sweeping pronunciations that "local storage is on the way out." If you'd been discussing a new subscription television service, and boldly announced that ad-funded television would soon be dead, he wouldn't exactly be out of line for noting that he'd be continuing to use traditional services.

It's more like people commenting that black-and-white television will soon be dead, and someone piping up to mention how he likes adjusting the bunny ears on his old RCA, goddamnit.
posted by nasreddin at 11:25 AM on May 11, 2011

It's really not, but thanks for the condescension.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 11:27 AM on May 11, 2011

NO CARRIER (BANDWIDTH EXCEEDED)

Not to mention reception - tunnels, airplanes, etc. There will always be good reasons for having files locally accessible.

I think you misunderstand what I meant: the invite mechanism gave Google Wave a much longer cycle of buzz than it would have otherwise enjoyed

I think I understand what you meant. I disagree. I think invite-only marketing is a bad idea for a product that depends on user contributions.

someone piping up to mention how he likes adjusting the bunny ears on his old RCA, goddamnit.

I can't be the only one who still gets his "TV" via antenna (and Internet), can I?
posted by mrgrimm at 11:35 AM on May 11, 2011

Heaping more support on Subsonic. It's amazing if you have a "home library" situation. My music streams from my desktop and so whenever I travel I have my entire library on my laptop to stream. Plus, my friends all have their own usernames and passwords to stream my library, and I've even given some of them download privileges!
posted by ReeMonster at 11:36 AM on May 11, 2011

Maybe it's just me, but it seems pretty obvious that the set of people who own televisions and don't subscribe to HBO is much smaller than the set of people who own iPods and don't carry a smartphone of some kind (especially in the very near future, considering how cheap Android smartphones are getting).
posted by nasreddin at 11:37 AM on May 11, 2011

Er, larger, of course.
posted by nasreddin at 11:37 AM on May 11, 2011

Devils Rancher: "I'm having trouble letting go of the old paradigm that a computer is a device with files and programs on it. It's odd feeling like a complete luddite in the face of all this cloud stuff, but I guess that's where we are headed eventually. A home computer is going to become a dumb terminal with apps & files stored in a huge central repository, (the old 80's idea of mainframes and terminals has moved outside of physical walls due to high speed internet access) and this is all a step in that direction."

I share your concerns, but still find this cloud stuff pretty cool from a "shiny gadget" standpoint. In the end my computer is private and my files will always be backed up right here in physical space on hard drives I control - but the cloud is still a fun thingie to experiment with, and maybe a useful set of services too. It's about convenience, really, and not necessity. Like you said, it could all go away tomorrow (or when the DSL goes down), but in the meantime its a fun bunch of toys. And for users who interact with the net through mobile devices, the cloud opens up a wide new range of possibilities.
posted by Kevin Street at 11:39 AM on May 11, 2011

Spotify will never be "the model" because it doesn't compensate artists enough.

Well, $0.0003483 per play doesn't sound like much, but when you multiply that by a few thousand listens per month...

Hmmm....

*goes back to day job*
posted by malocchio at 11:44 AM on May 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

My point is that having access to 10 million songs doesn't mean a thing. What matters is how many songs you have access to that you like.

And my point is that if you can't find a good enough chunk of the music you like among 10 million song, you must be some kind of ur-hipster and I am amazed you're posting here instead of this quiet little board that has only 2 users (cool guys, I won't have heard of them) and that you can only use a SPDY browser to access.

"I don't have a cellphone" is becoming an increasingly eccentric stance.

Becoming? Increasingly? You don't have very long before it's like not having a home phone in 1985.
posted by bonaldi at 11:50 AM on May 11, 2011

A home computer is going to become a dumb terminal with apps & files stored in a huge central repository

I think that it will be a combination of local storage and cloud storage, like drop box. But yeah, the idea of 'owning' copies of songs or music or movies and games is going to go away and fairly soon. Copyright is going to have to be replaced by something new.
posted by empath at 11:56 AM on May 11, 2011

who own iPods and don't carry a smartphone of some kind

iPods are not the only MP3 players (I figured more people would have Sandisks than iPods by now, but maybe not), and smartphones are not the only phones.

Think poor people and criminals/tin-foil-hatters.
posted by mrgrimm at 12:07 PM on May 11, 2011

Google’s Music Beta first look: it’s miserable
posted by Trurl at 12:07 PM on May 11, 2011

Google’s Music Beta first look: it’s miserable

OK, I know I'm usually way too supportive of Google, but come on--this deserves a more thoughtful review than this piece of shit. The only really substantive complaint about the user experience is that he wasn't able to get it to work on his Android device, but he doesn't go into any detail about what exactly he actually downloaded and what the process entailed. Everything else is either petty (shows up in system preferences, boo hoo), irrelevant (works like Grooveshark, some blah blah blah about Kongregate), or speculative (downloading from IMS). Has anyone in this thread gotten an invite yet?
posted by nasreddin at 12:16 PM on May 11, 2011

Invites haven't even gone out to most Google employees yet. I know someone that works there and he's still waiting. I'll post as soon as invites start going out, though.
posted by empath at 12:18 PM on May 11, 2011

And for users who interact with the net through mobile devices, the cloud opens up a wide new range of possibilities.

Oh, no doubt. There are things that are genuinely useful -- my work life has changed from having a desktop for heavy lifting & a laptop for portability (copying files via wifi network) to replacing the laptop with an iPad, Dropbox, Plaintext and GoodReader. I'm still syncing local files through "the cloud," though.

It's the apps, and subscription-based access to them that could get problematic if that becomes the sole business model for app distribution. My biggest wish for my iPad is to be able to tether it to my digital camera and use it as an interface in caves, which are places that most assuredly are never going to have an internet. If the only access to Photoshop Express was through a web-based app, it would basically bite. I know that's parenthetical to the thread, but if this all augers a movement in that direction, it's worth keeping an eye on.
posted by Devils Rancher at 12:23 PM on May 11, 2011

"I always wonder about this too. Since discovering Grooveshark I haven't downloaded or bought a single piece of music in a year and a half. Now I pay 3 bucks a month or something for the app on my phone and my Ipod touch has been collecting dust."

It's the exact opposite for me. My music purchases have kicked back in with a vengeance. Of course, they're mostly vintage LPs... (Did grab a couple of mp3s off of Amazon not too long ago, though. Paying for mp3s? What is this strange new world?)

Grooveshark's great, though. I suppose it does a lot of the same work as spotify (I haven't really used the shared playlists, but they're there) for the US market. It's rare that I can't find a song that I want there, unless it's a real rarity (I still have to go to youtube for "Golden" by Dreams So Real, from the Athens Inside Out documentary; such a sweet track), and I can upload something if it's missing. The problems I used to have with songs going missing are fewer and fewer these days (though it still happens). Since they added "track number" to the sort criteria and improved the album-based navigation, it's a lot easier to grab an album and just play it (in order! I know! I'm so old-skool!), and I have a feeling that's only going to get better.

The radio doesn't work very well; for suggestions or just a non-handpicked (but less than random) playlist, I still go to pandora (sorry, last.fm). I have a couple of pretty old stations on pandora (they still get weird from time to time, which requires me to reload the window rather than use all my skips on the girly folksingers it's suddenly decided I like because I'm a fan of Robert Plant's willowy vocals on some Zep track) that are fairly reliable. From time to time, they spit out a track that I'm like, OMG must hear more of! Then I plug the track into grooveshark, listen to it a dozen times in a row, add it to my library. I'm slowly building a list of bands I want to get into, music I want to buy, and concerts I want to attend. It sucks that Internet Radio has been crippled so severely, but grooveshark and pandora are both doing pretty well by me (sorry again, last.fm. You'll always be my "whoops, over limit on Pandora this month" alternate).

Google just doesn't fit anywhere in this scenario.
posted by Eideteker at 12:36 PM on May 11, 2011

I can't be the only one who still gets his "TV" via antenna (and Internet), can I?

No, in fact, aerials are the new hotness again because the stuff sent over the air often isn't as compressed as "HDTV" on cable/satellite.
posted by entropicamericana at 12:36 PM on May 11, 2011

Google’s Music Beta first look: it’s miserable

Without clicking, I'm gonna guess that link goes to BoingBoing.
posted by Ratio at 12:37 PM on May 11, 2011

Without clicking, I'm gonna guess that link goes to BoingBoing.

Not even close.

But here's Gizmodo:

Google isn't offering you a vast, new catalog. It's just offering to hold your shit for you. ... I don't want another place to simply store songs. I don't want to be isolated. I want to connect with new albums and people and artists. I don't want to just move from one island to another. I'm ready to be rescued.
posted by Trurl at 12:42 PM on May 11, 2011

But here's Gizmodo:

Nothing about this suggests that they've seen the actual product, unless I'm missing something?
posted by nasreddin at 12:46 PM on May 11, 2011

I do love the idea that they expect you to spend hours and hours uploading just so they can go "oh we have this one already, so we'll link your account to that one". Wouldn't it be a lot easier to skip the upload step and just scan your library on the disk?
posted by smackfu at 12:47 PM on May 11, 2011

Nothing about this suggests that they've seen the actual product

Since the writer's point is "I'm not interested in what this does", the question of how well it does it would seem moot.
posted by Trurl at 12:50 PM on May 11, 2011

Thanks, symbioid, I think I will give that subsonic program a whirl this weekend!
posted by Theta States at 12:51 PM on May 11, 2011

FWIW, this other Gizmodo guy loves it:

For a webapp that's still in beta, Google Music is one of the most polished cloud music services we've seen yet. Not only is the webapp a joy to use, but they've got some nice touches—like monitoring your local music folder for changes, and remembering your upload position for seamless library transfer, that already give it a few advantages over alternatives like Amazon Cloud Drive.
posted by Trurl at 12:55 PM on May 11, 2011

smackfu writes "Wouldn't it be a lot easier to skip the upload step and just scan your library on the disk?"

Sure, but this isn't a technical restriction it's a legal one.
posted by Mitheral at 1:03 PM on May 11, 2011

Thanks, symbioid, I think I will give that subsonic program a whirl this weekend!

It's pretty awesome. And if all you're doing is listening to your music via a web browser, it's completely free. You do have to register it to get the APIs to work past 30 days, though (and all the mobile apps need the APIs to function). Well worth it, in my opinion.
posted by inigo2 at 1:06 PM on May 11, 2011

Has anyone used subsonic on an Android phone?
posted by Theta States at 1:31 PM on May 11, 2011

Has anyone used subsonic on an Android phone?

Yep, works great. Plus the app on the Android phone is (a) free, and (b) developed by the guy who develops Subsonic itself.
posted by inigo2 at 1:42 PM on May 11, 2011

Yep, works great. Plus the app on the Android phone is (a) free, and (b) developed by the guy who develops Subsonic itself.


Woot. I have all my music on my main machine, a networked computer on each floor of the house, and an android phone. With this, I'm set!
posted by Theta States at 1:48 PM on May 11, 2011

And if Subsonic isn't to your taste, I bookmarked something called Plex when it was linked from here recently. I haven't used it, but it at least appears to be a pretty similar and complete alternative.
posted by inigo2 at 2:00 PM on May 11, 2011

Hmm. According to this, they're going to scan songs for pirated content and remove them if they infringe. Welp, unless this turns out to be an empty threat, subsonic it is.
posted by nasreddin at 2:07 PM on May 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

How on earth will they know? I mean, okay, watermarked tracks... I get that... but other than that, what are they going to do? Come to my house and look through my vinyl collection to make sure I have a copy of that thing that I was just listening to and ripped myself?
posted by hippybear at 2:36 PM on May 11, 2011

How on earth will they know [it's a pirated track]? I mean, okay, watermarked tracks... I get that... but other than that, what are they going to do? Come to my house and look through my vinyl collection to make sure I have a copy of that thing that I was just listening to and ripped myself?

This is the recurring problem I have with Grooveshark--they have locked every account I've attempted to use for Copyright violations. I suspect it's stuff I either ripped from vinyl myself (thanks, brother in law!) or back catalog stuff that independent artists released without any sort of label intervention because I don't have mp3s I didn't create myself from my CD collection.

Man, I miss lala.com more every day.
posted by crush-onastick at 2:42 PM on May 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

For end users, that could mean that album/song leaks and pirated music won't be tolerated. And though it seems like it will be difficult to distinguish what's pirated and what's not, Google could use the same analysis tech they use for playlists to verify you that have the right to upload that track to Google Music. (Spectral analysis and/or watermarks could expose rips from different sources). And that means if you've happened to download a leak or any unauthorized rip from the internet, then uploaded it to Google Music, it could be taken down.

And not that Google is wrong for doing so, but that will kill the appeal of Google Music for some people out there.

"Some" is a tactful way of putting it.
posted by Trurl at 3:53 PM on May 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

kafziel: My point is that having access to 10 million songs doesn't mean a thing. What matters is how many songs you have access to that you like.

Spotify has between 75-90% of albums that I want to listen to. It's got the latest pop songs for people who want that, and obscure bands from my part of South London who play third on the bill in the local pub. It's not some dumping ground for major label junk, and nothing else. (If you're interested, check my last.fm weekly album chart; every album in there except All Eternals Deck is on Spotify).

Mr Grimm: Downloaders actually buy music; I doubt Spotify users do

I'm not sure what you're basing that on. The music forums I'm on, people tend to use Spotify to identify the albums they want to buy. I agree that artists don't get enough out of Spotify, but on the other hand, the company is losing money. So maybe look to the record companies and see how much of a share they're taking.
posted by Infinite Jest at 12:23 AM on May 12, 2011

I think that gizmodo article sounds like bullshit tbh. Responding to DMCA takedowns isn't the same thing as scanning users files for pirated rips or anything like that.
posted by empath at 12:26 AM on May 12, 2011

Yeah, doesn't Google have to respond to DMCA requests, by the law, just like everyone else? Of course, since it isn't YouTube and is private, it would be very hard for the rights holder to figure out who to address the complaint about.
posted by smackfu at 6:00 AM on May 12, 2011

Oh, and Subsonic plays video, too. Not perfect, but works real well for me.
posted by inigo2 at 6:46 AM on May 12, 2011

Don't know of anybody who has gotten in, haven't heard anything since the initial announcement when I signed up in 7 seconds flat (right after the page went live). Yay, Google Wave part II.
posted by cashman at 7:18 PM on May 20, 2011

Still waiting. Still haven't heard jack. Has anybody gotten to use this?
posted by cashman at 5:17 PM on May 25, 2011

I got an invite yesterday. I haven't quite decided whether I want to bother uploading my music since there is no iOS client.
posted by smackfu at 6:17 AM on May 27, 2011

So how is it? And how soon did you sign up?
posted by cashman at 5:00 PM on May 30, 2011

Apple to announce iCloud on Monday (June 6th)
posted by cashman at 7:44 AM on May 31, 2011

I got on the wait list during the keynote. Ars has a better review than I could do. Probably a great choice if you have an Android device, while iOS users would best be served by waiting until we find out what the iCloud thing is.
posted by smackfu at 8:53 AM on May 31, 2011

Google just sent out invites, just an hour after the iCloud details were announced. Too late.
posted by cashman at 12:45 PM on June 6, 2011

RIP Google Music
posted by entropicamericana at 1:58 PM on June 6, 2011 [1 favorite]

I like the part where Apple is monetizing piracy. That won't piss anybody off.
posted by kafziel at 8:58 PM on June 6, 2011

Oh fuuuuuuuu--

That's kind of sad for Google, great for Apple. And to think, I just upload 560 GB of music to CrashPlan. I'll have to see how this all plays out. Currently my digital music collection contains a huge amount of recordings not on Itunes, and a bunch in FLAC format.

If they can't mirror my collection from other people's uploads, it will be significantly less useful. Like, would every person who has the 54 CD Merzbox be forced to upload it fresh to their iCloud?
But I like the idea of it...
posted by Theta States at 6:13 AM on June 7, 2011

kafziel writes "I like the part where Apple is monetizing piracy. That won't piss anybody off."

Unbelievable that they managed to get the labels to buy in for a cut of $25 a year. This is one of Apple's true super powers I think.
posted by Mitheral at 8:17 AM on June 7, 2011

I wonder how long it will take to hack the matching program so that Apple believes you have all 18 million Itunes tracks in your library...
posted by Theta States at 9:32 AM on June 7, 2011 [1 favorite]

Mitheral: "Unbelievable that they managed to get the labels to buy in for a cut of $25 a year. This is one of Apple's true super powers I think."

What that means is by and large, most people who listen to music, even pirated, don't actually listen to very much music at all. I've seen this time and again looking at other people's libraries over the local network in places like dorms- They've got the same selection of poorly-tagged Nickelback, Beatles and Radiohead MP3s, rarely reaching five gigs.
posted by dunkadunc at 9:39 AM on June 7, 2011

Google just sent out invites, just an hour after the iCloud details were announced. Too late.

Hm. I must suck. I signed up the first day and ... still waiting ...

So, iCloud is for iOS and Mac OS X only? ... What's the point?
posted by mrgrimm at 1:24 PM on June 7, 2011

half my collection is ripped - it's prolly about 50 gigs. but i end up listening to most of the same stuff (squarepusher, autechre, boards of canada, venetian snares) but i'm always changing moods. I listen to music at least 8 hours a day if not more. i'm an outlier, though.
posted by symbioid at 1:32 PM on June 7, 2011

half my collection is ripped - it's prolly about 50 gigs.

I rarely rip anything. I have 30GB or so of relatively recent downloaded music from the past year or so, then I've got 500 CDs/500 LPS or so (lost a bunch in an apartment fire a few years back).

I do have some rare stuff on LP that I need to rip and share at some point, but I find it much easier to just download from mediafire or elsewhere rather than ripping. It's often faster and doesn't require actually finding the physical media (which can be a problem for me).

In fact, I'd almost rather re-download something on a new machine than connect to Google/AOL/Excite/Yahoo to upload and stream from elsewhere. I guess this cloud is "not for me" but I'm probably a slight outlier as well.

Interesting: first result on Google for "icloud" is this CloudMe service (which looks to have struggled under the strain ...)

Bad SEO, Apple!
posted by mrgrimm at 1:42 PM on June 7, 2011 [1 favorite]

Hm. I must suck. I signed up the first day and ... still waiting ...

Me too! We can be in the Google Thinks We Suck club together!
posted by rtha at 2:13 PM on June 7, 2011

The iCloud domain (and trademark, I think) was recently purchased by Apple from a company that since renamed itself to CloudMe. Until yesterday, icloud.com pointed at their servers.
posted by entropicamericana at 3:44 PM on June 7, 2011