Amazon Takes On iTunes Match With Upgraded Cloud Player, Label Deals

Amazon today launched an upgraded Cloud Player along with licensing agreements with Sony, EMI, Universal, Warner Music, and more than 150 independent distributors, aggregators and music publishers.  Aimed straight at the same market as iTunes Match, Amazon’s scan and match technology offers access to music anywhere, but on a wider variety of devices including the Kindle Fire, iPhone, Android devices and any web browser.

Free & Premium Tiers

Cloud Player Free customers get storage and playback for all MP3 music purchased at Amazon plus 250 imported songs. Cloud Player Premium customers can import and store up to 250,000 songs for $24.99 yearly. New Amazon Cloud Player features include:

• Amazon MP3 purchases — including music that customers purchased in the past — are automatically saved to Cloud Player free of charge.
• Amazon scans customers’ iTunes and Windows Media Player libraries and matches the songs on their computers to Amazon’s 20 million song catalog.
• All matched songs including music purchased from iTunes or ripped from CDs are made available in Cloud Player and are upgraded for free to high-quality 256 Kbps audio.
• Roku streaming players and Sonos home entertainment systems will be added soon.