DOT-DOT-DOT-COM: LOOKING AT THE CLOUD FROM BOTH SIDES NOW

Will this cloud concept—by which people can access whatever content they’ve accumulated from anywhere on any device—catch on? Apple and Google seem to think so, and those two tech titans have been known to be right about a whole lotta stuff we didn’t know we needed until they made it generally available. And thanks to recent mainstream media coverage, awareness of the concept among consumers appears to be growing rapidly. To wit, more than 25% of American iTunes, iPhone and iPod users surveyed expressed "strong interest" in a free, cloud-based music streaming service, according to a recent study conducted by NPD Group. Specifically, a model that offered free streaming would attract 13 million to 15 million subscribers—out of the 50 million estimated iTunes users in the U.S.—the survey found, while between 7-8 million U.S. iTunes users indicated a willingness to pay a minimum monthly fee of $10 for such a service. "After the service's launch, user numbers could conceivably rise substantially, as they upgrade to newer connected devices and actually experience the benefits of cloud-based music," said NPD mouthpiece Russ Crupnick. "If the consumers who indicated strong interest in a paid subscription actually adopted one of those services at $10 per month, the market opportunity is close to $1 billion in the first year, which is roughly two-thirds the revenue garnered by the current pay-per-download model. We don't yet know what, if any, effect these services might have on the traditional pay-per-download music model, or whether consumers will ultimately spend more on digital music overall, if or when any of these options eventually rolls out."… Closer to ground level, meanwhile, Amazon MP3 is planning a "major relaunch" for Q1 of 2011, TechCrunch reported, citing one of them there “anonymous sources.” The archetypal online retailer launched its MP3 store in 2007, dropped DRM in 2008 and now accounts for an estimated 1.3% of paid downloads in the U.S.,though Amazon as a whole (including sales of physical product) accounts for 7.1% of the market. A source told TechCrunch the updated Amazon MP3 will include new APIs and affiliate features, and the company is said to have asked partners looking to integrate the new features to hold off until Amazon is prepared for launch. The story cited more than a dozen job postings tweeted from the Amazon MP3 Twitter account for business and engineering positions. Wrote reporter Jason Kincaid: “Look for Amazon to try to get its store integrated in as many places as possible later this year and early next year — given its past association with Android, it’s even possible that Amazon may be involved with Google Music, which was previewed at Google I/O.”… Since its adoption last September, France’s three-strikes lawhas yet to result in a single warning, let alone the cutting of any broadband connections, the N.Y. Times noted. Political leader Jean-François Copé recently said he saw “weaknesses” in the law, adding that his position on piracy had “evolved” since the vote. Copé was speaking during a meeting to introduce a digital policy paper that appeared to challenge the rationale for the three-strikes approach. It states, “Illegal downloading will be marginalized not by restrictive legislation but by technological progress and changing patterns of usage.” This is a reference to the convenience of cloud-based services offering on-demand listening, which could eventually replace the downloading and storing of music on PCs and MP3 players. But in the meantime, file-sharing has actually increased in France since the legislation was passed, according to one study.