Amazon has signed new licensing agreements with Sony Music Entertainment, EMI Music, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and more than 150 independent distributors, aggregators and music publishers to upgrade its Cloud Player service.
The new service will locate music files on computers, create matching versions of those songs and store them in the cloud.
The upgraded Cloud Player includes a scan and match technology that allow customers to get all of their music from their computers to the cloud.
Cloud Player customers can now enjoy their music anywhere on their favorite devices, including Kindle Fire, iPhone, iPod Touch, Android devices and any web browser.
In addition both Roku streaming players and Sonos home entertainment systems will soon get Amazon Cloud Player access.
The new Cloud Player automatically scans customers’ iTunes and Windows Media Player libraries and then matches the songs on their computers to Amazon’s song catalog, which includes 20 million tracks.
All matched songs are made available in the Cloud Player and are upgraded for free to high-quality 256 Kbps audio. Music that customers have already uploaded to Cloud Player will also be upgraded.
Now the Cloud Drive is distinguished from its Cloud Player service, reserving Drive for file storage and Player for music storage and Cloud Player for music storage and playback.
