Not too long ago music lovers had music collections...in their homes that is. Not any more. People now don't talk about LPs, cassettes and CDs but files and playlists and of having their music collection in the cloud. Yes well that does seem to be the imminent fate of music collections. So what is a Cloud? There was a time when the internet was denoted by the symbol of a cloud in network diagrams, because the internet was a collection of inter-connected networks which didn't have a definable location - it was 'somewhere out there'. Actually the concept of the cloud and cloud computing is nothing new. Email services like yahoo, hotmail and gmail used by billions of people around the world are nothing but examples of cloud computing, where the infrastructure such as hardware, software, data storage, servers etc, are located remotely in the providers' facility and accessed by users from their PCs, etc, through the internet. Today with more and more people's lives at home and at work revolving round computers, laptops, tablets and smart phones, there was a need to integrate the accessibility of something like music on the various devices people use and make it hassle free. Enter the idea of cloud music service.

So what is a cloud music service? Basically cloud music service lets you upload your music to the storage facility of the service provider commonly termed as 'locker' from where you can access it anywhere anytime with your phone or pc or any other compatible device. All you need is an internet connection. But Of course life is never that simple and the services offered by different providers whilst similar in some respects, vary to a great extent in other features. Major players like Apple, Amazon and Google have already rolled out their cloud services, besides subscription services like Spotify, Rhapsody and others like eMusic, mSpot, and Thumbplay. Sony too had launched Qriocity, their dedicated cloud based service last year for  their PlayStation and other net enabled Sony devices, till it was withdrawn after a recent hacker attack.  

Amazon was among the first to offer their 'Cloud Drive' service which is free to all and lets you store up to 5GB of your music on their servers and beyond that you pay a fee of $20 per year, stream your music directly from the server or download them on to your devices using your browser and even upload music you have acquired (legally and otherwise) or purchased from sources other than from Amazon. You can also buy music on line and music purchased from Amazon would be automatically be stored on your cloud player and would not be charged for storage space used.

Google's 'Music Beta' service while similar to Amazon is available by invitation only. It lets you upload 20,000 songs for free but whether or not further storage would be chargeable has not yet been announced. One of the major differences of Music Beta compared to Amazon and Apple is that you cannot buy music online, because Google has so far not finalized licensing arrangements with any of the music companies. Neither has Amazon but their stand is that the original license for MP3 downloads holds good for their cloud service. Only Apple has struck a licensing deal with all major music labels for their cloud music service.

Coming to Apple, the company has the largest presence in digital music and only recently launched its  'iCloud' service which includes ‘iTunes iMatch’. This service however has some significant differences compared to the other two, primarily being that you cannot access your music from within a web browser. You need to have an Apple device running the iOS (Apple Operating System) software, though it will work with a Windows pc running iTunes. The other difference is that with iCloud you don't need to upload all your music to iCloud's server. What the service does is that it scans your music collection for music purchased from iTunes and after matching your songs with the over 18 million songs stored on their servers, makes a high quality 256 Kbps copy of your songs and makes it directly accessible from their servers for free. It also matches illegal music and those acquired from sources other than iTunes and will automatically store a high quality copy on their server, but you have to pay $24.95 per year and there is no storage limit. This is a major advantage because uploading your music collection is a rather time consuming process despite broadband speeds. One of the drawbacks of the service is that you cannot stream your music from the iCloud server but need to download it to your device before you can listen to them.  One other difference though not related to music but which could work in iCloud's favour is that the service provides synchronization functions for your email, pictures, documents, contacts, etc which are automatically uploaded to your devices.

Its probably too early to say which service will prove to be a winner in the long run, besides there are players like eMusic, mSpot, and Thumbplay who also coming up with similar services and have their own customer base. As of now though, Apple may have an edge over the others. However when it comes to music, cloud services are not the only option open to consumers and subscription services from companies like Rhapsody, Spotify and others which offer access to millions of tracks and albums of every genre, which can be listened to anywhere anytime. If owning your music collection does not matter, it probably makes sense to go with a subscription service.

So the field is wide open and no doubt music services will evolve further along with the development of cloud computing technology in the years ahead. You could also have services that offer both options, storage and subscription. But one thing seems certain your music collection is not going to be in the your home but in the cloud and as you listen to Hendrix sing …excuse me while I kiss the sky, from the Cloud, you could say... well quite possible.

~ Stanley Paul