There’s an old adage that “Everything old is new again.” Take a look at fashion and the reboots of TV shows and movies. It almost like we’re all stuck in a rut for a good new idea. Amazon now seems to be in that group too with their Cloud Drive service.

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Please don't get me wrong, I love Amazon. When I go looking for something on the web, I usually go to Amazon first. But the Cloud Drive service they have launched, and rumored that Apple and Google are working on as well, is nothing new. Back in 2000 a website called MP3.com had something similar called MyMP3.com. It was basically what Amazon is offering now.

You can take music you own and upload it to Amazon’s Cloud storage system, then stream your music from anywhere. MP3.com did this too, but was sued by the Record industry for copyright violations. They ended up settling for $53.4 million in exchange for permission to use it’s library. Which touched off a debate online that still rages to some point today. “Do you own the music you buy?”

Amazon says that no licensing is required for this service. So I’m betting there’s going to be some negotiations going on between the record industry and Amazon, if it hasn’t already started. And then I wouldn’t be surprised if it all goes back to court.

Amazon has also said that it has increased it’s MP3 store sales. You can purchase a song from Amazon’s music store and have it stored and streaming on your account immediately. The ability to buy something you may have just heard on the radio and then have it stream from your own collection online that you can access anywhere is pretty awesome. Throw in a mobile app and you have a slam dunk.

So this could be a chip that Amazon can use in these talks should they be going on or starting soon. But either way, it was a cool idea back then, and still a good idea today.  Apple and Google have yet to roll out their versions, but some hackers have discovered that Google’s service is running but in true Google fashion, they’re still tweaking it. Also, Amazon's cloud player does support AAC formatted music from the iTunes store. So you can upload songs you have purchased there as well.

If you already have an Amazon account, you can start to use the cloud service. I just logged into mine this morning and plan on uploading some choice picks myself and see how it all works. I'll post a review in the near future.

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