UPDATED 13:03 EDT / NOVEMBER 15 2011

Music Madness, from iTunes Match to Android Piracy

As Google Music nears its full launch and rumors of a new Store flood the headlines, other music services are spicing things up to keep their edge as well.  While Google’s leaked hints of what its upcoming Music event will be about, we won’t know the full details until tomorrow afternoon.  In the mean time, lets find out what others are up to.

iTunes

Last week, Apple released iTunes Match – a service that allows users to store their music library of as much as 25,000 files on iCloud for only $25 per year.  It features two new IDS 3 tags for viewing the status of your matched music:

  • iCloud
  • iCloud Status

iTunes Match works like this: it determines which songs in your collection are available in the iTunes Store. Then if it is matched, it will be automatically added to iCloud. There are more than 20 milion available songs in the iTunes Store so most of the songs in your personal library is probably already in the iCloud.  All you have to upload is what iTunes can’t match. Which is much faster than starting from scratch. Once your music is in iCloud, you can stream and store it on any of your devices. Even better, all the music iTunes matches plays back from iCloud at 256-Kbps AAC DRM-free quality — even if your original copy was of lower quality.

Everyone seems too eager to try out the service, overwhelming Apple with the high demand, resulted in the unavailability of iTunes Match subscriptions.

Flowd

Flowd, the social network for music lovers which just recently launched, is now taking on the mobile scene with its latest update.  When it first launched, only a few artists signed up.  But now, Flowd apps features integration to other social networks and music hub so even if the artist you’re interested in isn’t on Flowd, you can still get their gig schedule on their site.

Flowd app is available on iTunes, Android and Ovi for Nokia though the update is only available for iOS and Android devices.

MP3 Music Download Pro

Google is taking a lot of heat becuse of the very popular Android app MP3 Music Download Pro.  The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) that the app works like Limewire and it pirates songs.

“We sent a takedown notice to Google in August for this particular app, which is clearly being used for illegal purposes, and Google responded that they were declining to remove it from the Android Market,” the RIAA spokeswoman said. “We continue to have concerns with Google’s screening and takedown procedures and hope that they will be improved.”

Executive vice president and general counsel of RIAA, Steven Marks, stated that Google and RIAA already engaged in a dialogue:

“Google has taken down some mobile apps that facilitate infringement,” Marks wrote. “But the takedown times are long, and too often we see the same or substantially similar apps from the same developers re-appear a few days later. Google could also take a more proactive role by screening and evaluating apps before they are made available. Most importantly, too many apps created to harvest links to unauthorized files remain available and popular on the Android marketplace, resulting in widespread infringement of copyrighted works.”


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