Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Amazon's Answer To iTunes Match: Scan and Match

Seattle-based Amazon is challenging Apple's cloud-based music services, saying yesterday that it has launched new "scan and match" technology which will scan a user's iTunes and Windows Media Player libraries, and match the songs to Amazon's own song catalog. Amazon said the new features will allow users to play any of those songs via its Cloud Player, no matter if those songs were purchase or ripped from a CD. In addition, Amazon said it has cleared the effort with Sony Music Entertainment, EMI Music, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, and more than 150 independent distributors, aggregators and music publishers. Amazon said that it will make the service available in two tiers: a free one which stores MP3's purchased at Amazon plus up to 250 songs imported from a PC; and a $24.99, annual plan where users can store up to 250,000 songs in its cloud service.