A couple of years ago, after an iTunes update and a glitchy library conversion, I had a vision of the download and the library conversion going away in favor of Apple’s iTunes-iCloud (or whatever you wanted to call it) music service.  I liked the idea.  It had merit.  It was fresh, bold, and innovative.

It had Apple written all over it.

iTunes in the Cloud could offer:

• Reduced storage requirements for end users, as their music would reside in a Cloud/SaaS based library.
• Apple would only have to have a single copy of any and every song they sold; but would have to maintain an ACL (Access Control List) for each authorized purchaser or user/listener.
• You’d only download the paid content you wanted to your local HDD or iDevice. You could swap this in and out of your iDevice at will.
• You could stream YOUR purchased music to your iDevice over 3G/4G (if carrier supported…) or Wi-Fi.
• Plus any other cloud based benefits you can cram in the model

Apple recently introduced VERY basic cloud based services and got some serious push back from the RIAA and other industry influencers (freakin’ communists, all; the greedy bastages…)

However, the question of the day is, Do YOU want your music in the cloud?  Do you want that kind of service and all that it entails, both good and bad?  Will the lack of 3G/4G coverage in the geographical areas you frequen (if applicable) be a huge deterrent to you? Is there ANY difference between storing your music on YOUR hard drive vs. Apple’s hard drive? Should there be?  Should it cost you more or less to do that?  Should there be ANY end user associated costs?  Would you be supportive of a raise in single song costs to (for example…) say, $1.99 per song, to help off set increased royalty (cuz you KNOW the RIAA is going to get a hold of this and eff this one up…), storage and/or licensing costs?

This has been on my mind for a while and I know everyone here at JAMM would love to hear what you have to say.  Why not sound off and give us YOUR thoughts in the comments below?

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