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Amazon's cloud risks war with labels, studios
What the company didn't do was license the rights to do this from the major Hollywood film studios and top record companies. Certainly, many from the film and music camps believe that without obtaining the proper permission, Amazon's new service violates their legal rights, multiple sources from the entertainment sector told CNET. Cloud Drive, announced late Monday, is a hard-drive backup service accessible via the Web. Consumers can store their digital songs, videos, photos, documents, and music. In addition, Amazon also rolled out the Cloud Player, which enables users to play the songs they uploaded to Cloud Drive. News that Amazon was preparing the service was first reported by CNET on Friday. Sources said then that Amazon had met with some of their studio and label counterparts to lay out their plans. In those talks, Amazon executives said that they wanted to get up and running quickly and also wanted their blessing. Amazon execs said in the meetings that they were prepared to unveil the service without licenses and would negotiate them at a later date.In an interview with The New York Times on Monday, Amazon took a more defiant tone, at least with regard to music. "We don't need a license to store music," Craig Pape, director of music at Amazon, was quoted in the Times as saying. "The functionality is the same as an external hard drive."This was not warmly received by some of the top four labels. They have made it clear, since cloud services began to generate attention last year, that their current licenses do not allow for cloud distribution or storage. As far as they're concerned, anyone offering these features needs permission. The Wall Street Journal on Monday evening quoted a Sony Music Entertainment representative saying, "We are disappointed that the locker service that Amazon is proposing is unlicensed by Sony Music." Read about Google's internal testing of Google Music by clicking this photo.Greg SandovalThe next move by the labels and studios is hard to predict. Some of the other top record labels were still assessing Cloud Drive and Cloud Player Tuesday morning and were also trying to figure out what legal argument Amazon is using to justify its position, music industry sources said. It's unlikely the labels would at this point file a lawsuit, but the potential for a legal fight is real. EMI, the smallest of the four largest record labels, filed a lawsuit in 2007 against MP3tunes.com and founder Michael Robertson, one of the pioneers in cloud music. EMI accuses Robertson and his company of encouraging copyright violations. The label, home of The Beatles catalog and singer Katy Perry, alleges Robertson has set up his two operations, MP3tunes.com and Sideload.com, to encourage piracy. According to EMI's complaint, Sideload helps users track down and organize links to pilfered music files on the Web. MP3tunes then is used to store the pirated content without paying a dime to the music creators. Robertson dismisses these claims. He argues that the lawsuit is little more than an attempt by the labels to lock up the cloud so they can force consumers to pay a fee to access songs that they already own. The sides are waiting for the judge in the case to rule on summary judgment. A decision could come down at any time and the case may help determine who actually owns the cloud. So, why would Amazon risk alienating suppliers and a possible lawsuit over the issue of licensing? One potential reason: it otherwise might have found itself mired in negotiations for months. Licensing music, especially for new cloud services, is a complex process. Talks have dragged on for years in some cases. If Amazon was determined to be first out the door with a cloud service, time was running out. CNET reported last week that Google has begun using employees to test Google Music internally. Earlier in the month, Bloomberg reported that Apple is in talks with the major labels over giving iTunes users access to cloud-based tracks. Instead of following the normal procedures, Amazon made the bold move to jump past Google and Apple and risk angering suppliers. Acting first may have offered too many advantages for the company to sit still. One studio source told me recently that research has shown digital-lockers users may be reluctant to switch after going to the trouble of uploading their media. The source said the studios saw the same thing with iTunes. People don't typically leave. That means any service that acquires a user first stands to keep him or her. One advantage that Amazon's entry into cloud storage may have is that it could prompt Google and Apple to move more quickly. Amazon was once more associated with DVDs and CDs than digital distribution. The glamour companies were Google, Netflix, and Apple, and for the past year, all eyes have been on them. Then, earlier this month, Amazon dropped a bombshell by announcing that members of the company's Prime service would receive free-of-charge access to a pool of 5,000 streaming movies and TV shows. Analysts noted that Amazon had the money and audience to challenge Netflix's domination. The move put Amazon on the streaming-video map.Not only did that send Netflix stock into a swoon, but it sent a message that Amazon is no longer satisfied with taking a backseat in digital distribution.

iOS 5.0.1 arrives with battery fix in tow
Ahead of its original estimate, Apple released iOS 5.0.1 to users this morning. It's the first update to the latest version of its mobile operating system, and one that promises to fix bugs that gave users poor battery life on their devices. The updates comes a little more than a week after Apple first acknowledged that some users were, in fact, running into problems with battery life after upgrading to the newer version of iOS. In conjunction with that, the company released a beta version of the software for developers to test. A second beta of that software arrived a day and a half later. Apple has not copped to any specific reason as to why some users were experiencing shorter than usual battery life as part of iOS 5. Originally it was believed to be related to some of the hardware changes with the iPhone 4S, including a move to a dual-core processor, though some iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4 users were experiencing issues as well.There's no telling how much of an improvement to battery life the fix will bring. Initial reports from users of the beta have been positive, with one going so far as to call it "nothing short of amazing." Besides tackling the battery life issue, one of iOS 5.0.1's headlining features is that it brings multitasking gestures to original iPad owners. The feature lets iPad users take advantage of multi-finger gestures to navigate between apps, and access certain features--notably pinching together the screen to go back to the home screen. Apple originally included the feature in an earlier developer beta, though removed it entirely in the final version of the software that went out to users with the first-generation iPad. The update also fixes a security issue with Apple's Smart Cover for the iPad 2 that would let users gain access to whatever app the owner of that device was running, even if they didn't know that user's lockscreen password. That bug was discovered late last month, after iOS 5 was released.Other fixes include a bug with documents in Apple's iCloud service, and improvements to voice recognition accuracy for Australian users using Apple's dictation feature on the iPhone 4S.The new software is available as a free update through iTunes. This is also the first time users get to try out Apple's built-in updating feature that's new to iOS 5.Not included in the update are two recently discovered, though for now inaccessible iOS features. They include a panorama mode in Apple's camera application that's able to take panoramic shots by sweeping the camera side to side, as well as a new auto-correct menu in the keyboard. Both of those features are tucked away within the depths of the software, but were pulled out by developers this week.Full change log below: This update contains improvements and other bug fixes including: Fixes bugs affecting battery life Adds Multitasking Gestures for original iPad Resolves bugs with Documents in the Cloud Improves voice recognition for Australian users using dictationImage form:CNET