We left each other here with an article in which we have listed the most famous MSPs (Music Service Providers). After analyzing the individual specifications by comparing them, we will focus our attention on the questions that these new forms of storage and reproduction raise and on the legal problems they have generated.
While the "virtuous" Apple continues to create or fortify advantageous links with the most important record companies, purchasing licenses built specifically for the advent of iCloud, the rebels Amazon e Google Inc. they risked the closure of cloud services, accused by the majors of infringing copyright with their Cloud Drive and Google Music and of promoting piracy. According to Sony & Co., although the aforementioned companies do not sell anything but only offer a virtual space that the user manages as he wishes, they still have the obligation to agree with the owners of the copyright, adding that "cloud databases are a music pirate's paradise." In other words, the “lockers” would in many cases be warehouses in which to safely store pirated loot, illegally downloaded. In their defense, Amazon and Google claim that they do nothing other than offer a space that is not at all other than physical media such as mp3 players. A bit like saying “if I sell a knife to cut bread, it's not my fault if you kill someone”.
This bloody battle began with the closure in the very early 2000s of Mp3.com and continued between 2005 and 2011 in the clash between EMI ed Mp3Tunes. The quirk EMI based much of the accusation on lay in the ways in which users could upload their music to the virtual locker. Thanks to an ingenious and complex algorithm, every time the server was communicated to want to upload a song, Mp3 Tunes checked if in its rich database there was already someone else who had already uploaded it. If successful, the site instantly added the song to the user's library without wasting time. In this innovative process, devoted to the economy in terms of both space and time, EMI recognized a sort of peer-to-peer illegal thanks to which many users used the same file.
Far from Cloud Drive and Google Music getting into more than necessary trouble, at their birth these services did not allow instant synchronization, forcing the poor internet users to a long and exhausting uploading process. It should be noted that Apple itself, the first in its class, was risking very expensive legal disputes since not all the world of discography has granted licenses to the apple and its iCloud. Many artists have denied the coveted permits, arguing that Apple, with the right friendships and important connections, tends to bury other companies and acquire a monopoly in the field of music digital distribution.
In August 2011 the sentence of the EMI case against Mp3Tunes finally arrives, which sees the latter acquitted of all the accusations, legalizing and relaunching the great idea behind the project: checking if every song uploaded by users is already present in the database. Recall that the beauty of cloud computing lies in the fact that if 100 companies need a certain app, there is no need to make 100 identical apps available: there will be only one that they can all use at the same time. The songs are thus identified by a digital fingerprint, theMD5 hash, which allows you to easily recognize them. Thanks to the agreements made with the record companies, Apple is the only one able to carry out "upgrades": if I have a poor version of a song, perhaps a version ripped from a CD, iCloud has the authorization to replace it with the master of the highest quality in its possession.
