The great Mp3.com wars were fought over the concept of storage lockers: yes, the suits involved violation of the reproduction right from MP3.com's massive purchase of lawful CDs and copying them on to their servers, but the labels' objections were over consumers ability to listen to a lawfully purchased copy wherever they wanted -- as opposed to having to buy multiple copies, say. As an audiophile, I have never liked the mp.3 format, and go the other way, buying SACD and DVD audio CDs, although admittedly not so far back as vinyl.
Storage lockers are back, most recently with the announcement by the Norwegian company Ezmo that's storage locker service will be available in the U.S. Techcrunch describes the service this way:
Ezmo, like Anywhere.FM, is a clone of iTunes on the web that just came to the United States. Their Flash based player lets you upload your music to the web, organize it into playlists, and share with your friends (just 10). Unlike Anywhere.FM, Ezmo lets you not only pull music from iTunes, but upload music from your Windows Media Player and Winamp music collections too. However, Anywhere.FM still wins out in my mind for the time being. I find it easier for me to use because its user interface stays truer to iTunes. Their buddy radio is also an easy way to consume new music on par with Last.FM. Ezmo only lets you share music with ten friends.
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Here's a riddle.
What is the difference between:
1) a service that lets you upload your entire music collection in order for it to be downloaded or streamed to you anywhere.
2) a service that lets you upload the DETAILS of your entire music collection in order for it to be randomly streamed to you anywhere.
The former involves reproduction and distribution of copies.
The latter involves no reproduction or distribution, only performance, and constitutes 'webcasted' radio.
So, if you want to listen to the kind of music you like wherever you are and don't need particularly high fidelity, then the notion of the copy disappears.
And yet the same digital bits are flying around?
It's just some lunatic who's shoehorned a paper metaphor into the digital domain that keeps the emperor's tailors in the lifestyle to which they've become accustomed.
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