Apple's iCloud Gives Users Free 5GB of Cloud Space for Syncing

[Rob Williams]

With Apple's major announcements at WWDC, one might imagine that it'd be OS X 'Lion' or iOS 5 to receive the most attention, but at Apple's homepage, neither of those are at the forefront. Rather, that privilege belongs to 'iCloud', Apple's long-awaited cloud-based storage service. While it's been imagined in past months that the service would allow people to store their music and some documents in the cloud, Apple has a couple of other surprises to that will make all Mac users want to take advantage of what's being offered.

Read the rest of our post and then discuss it here!

 

[marfig]

Let's be honest here... for Apple to secure the proper licenses for tech like this is nothing short of amazing. Never in my right mind would I ever guess that any company could get the music industry to agree to a feature like this, but it's soon to be a reality. I'm still in relative awe.

You and I. And my first reaction (after checking the calender this isn't 1st of April) was rejecting the idea RIAA was involved in this process...

There must be some provisions in the law that allow for users with genuine content to use the cloud as a storage media. Is there? I mean, not only I find it near impossible to have RIAA agree with this, but also:

• I find it difficult to imagine the license fees Apple would have to pay, for what's a free service
• I find it impossible to abide also to all international laws, for which licensing schemas may be different from those supporting RIAA. Although I suspect international agreements put most western countries more or less in accord concerning copyright material, I don't for one moment think there aren't exceptions or special cases.

Really... has to be something in the law that allows this type of service for USA at least. No?

 

[Greg King]

You and I. And my first reaction (after checking the calender this isn't 1st of April) was rejecting the idea RIAA was involved in this process...

There must be some provisions in the law that allow for users with genuine content to use the cloud as a storage media. Is there? I mean, not only I find it near impossible to have RIAA agree with this, but also:

• I find it difficult to imagine the license fees Apple would have to pay, for what's a free service
• I find it impossible to abide also to all international laws, for which licensing schemas may be different from those supporting RIAA. Although I suspect international agreements put most western countries more or less in accord concerning copyright material, I don't for one moment think there aren't exceptions or special cases.

Really... has to be something in the law that allows this type of service for USA at least. No?

I am in agreement with you both. I love this idea but am concerned how it's legally viable given the datacenter shown off yesterday is in the United States (and holy hell I want to go there). If this is as it was presented, a HUGE bucket of storage to keep your iTune's library accessible, it's proof that Apple is swinging one hell of a bat.

 

[Greg King]

Fantastic article with a lot of good questions.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-kusek/icloud-amnesty-for-music-_b_872236.html

 

[Rob Williams]

Fantastic article with a lot of good questions.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-kusek/icloud-amnesty-for-music-_b_872236.html

That article has rather good insight into things... and it's hard to disagree. I like Bowie's quote as well... spot-on. It is humorous to think that Apple and the music industry as a whole could actually bring more revenue in if people pirate, as long as they pay this $25 per year.

I admit though, I'll still be more excited once iTunes brings lossless options to its store...