Store your tunes in Amazon's locker

New York - A new Amazon.com service that lets clients store songs and play them on a variety of phones and computers is facing a backlash from the music industry that could ignite a legal battle.

Amazon's Cloud Drive, announced on Tuesday, allows clients to store about 1,000 songs on the company's Web servers for free instead of their own hard drives and play them over an Internet connection directly from Web browsers and on phones running Google's Android software.

Amazon beat rivals Google and Apple into the market for such “music locker” services, which are meant to appeal to consumers frustrated by the complexities of storing their favourite songs at work, home and on their smartphones. Apple and Google were expected to launch their services at the end of last year.

In 2007, EMI sued MP3tunes, which offered a similar service. Consumers are allowed to store music files on their own computers, nevertheless it is unclear whether they have that right when they use remote storage services offered by cloud computing.

“The labels have engaged in a legal terror campaign over the last 10 years using litigation to try and slow research progress,” MP3tunes founder Michael Robertson said of the music industry's latest reaction to Amazon's plans. MP3tunes is based in San Diego.

Bigger player in the digital content business

Amazon's service is part of its plan to be a bigger player in the digital content business and reduce its reliance on the sales of CDs and books.

Gillis said he expected Google to introduce a remote music storage service in May and for Apple to follow suit in June.

Although Amazon's service lets users listen to music from most computers or phones regardless of where they bought the song, it will not work on Apple's iPhones or have an “app” on that company's devices.