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Amazon to Introduce Streaming Music Service This Summer, Only Offering Songs 6-Months or Older

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Amazon will be launching a music streaming service offered free to customers paying for its $99/year Amazon Prime service. The service will launch in June or July according to a new report from Buzzfeed.

The news follows yesterday's acquisition of Beats Music by Apple, and a report from February that claimed Amazon was investigating the possibility of a music service to accompany Prime.

Amazon's streaming catalog will only include songs older than six months, likely saving the company on royalty costs. Spotify, Beats and Rdio all offer new releases to their subscribers.
The company will expand its Prime membership offerings by adding a stockpile of old and newish music for subscribers to stream on demand. The Prime music service, which is scheduled to launch this June or July, will not include recent releases but instead restrict its catalog to songs and albums that are 6 months old and older, five music industry sources familiar with the company's plans confirmed to BuzzFeed.
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Amazon has some 20 million paying Prime members and offers them a library of movie and TV shows via its Netflix-esque Prime Instant Video service along with free 2-day shipping on most items the company sells.

Recently, Amazon signed a deal with HBO to stream older original content from the cable network to Prime subscribers.

Article Link: Amazon to Introduce Streaming Music Service This Summer, Only Offering Songs 6-Months or Older
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2014/05/29/amazon-streaming-music-service/
X

xero9

macrumors 6502a
Nov 7, 2006
863
486
Cue the Apple fanboys saying Amazon is trying to get a jump on Apple/Beats.
 
ct2k7

ct2k7

macrumors G3
Aug 29, 2008
8,362
3,434
London
I thought people loved listening to new stuff?

Though music from 6 months ago onwards is ok, the premium to listening to current releases without buying the track / album is what attracts people, no?
 
F

fumi2014

macrumors 6502
May 21, 2014
352
1,516
California
December 2014.

person A: "Hey, Man. Are you listening to the new album on Spotify?"

person B: "No, I have to wait until the middle of next year."
 
ActionableMango

ActionableMango

macrumors G3
Sep 21, 2010
9,612
6,907
ct2k7 said:
I thought people loved listening to new stuff?

Though music from 6 months ago onwards is ok, the premium to listening to current releases without buying the track / album is what attracts people, no?
Click to expand...

They don't really need to attract new people. It's free for Prime users, so millions of people will just have access to it.

That's the power of an existing, well-liked ecosystem.
 
usamaah

usamaah

macrumors regular
Sep 23, 2008
190
287
Chicago
This makes Amazon Prime an even better deal. What a brilliant idea. Although I like being able to try out new music right away, most of the music I listen to tends to be >6mo anyway since I'm always playing catch up to music.

Not really for the music junkies maybe but a great deal for those who casually want to listen to music.
 
Jessica Lares

Jessica Lares

macrumors G3
Oct 31, 2009
9,612
1,056
Near Dallas, Texas, USA
Basically they just announced a music service for old people who don't like our hip new music. :p

It's okay. I don't think the main audience of Amazon is 25-some year olds. Some of us of course have Amazon Student, but we are not their most profitable customers.
 
M

malexandria

Suspended
Mar 25, 2009
971
427
Stupid

The whole point of Music Subscription services is to give people the ability to sample as much music as they want. What is the point of letting people listen to an old album that they probably already heard, or worse popular songs that have already been played to death by then? Who the hell want to hear "Happy" or "Let It Go" on a subscription service?

I was originally skeptical but have really loved using my Sub service for the last 5 years and guess what? I've gone back to purchasing CDs because of it. I like being able to hear the latest and greatest before committing to it, and discovering new people like Cher Lloyd, Imagine Dragons, The Black Keys, even Arianna Grande, I bought all those albums because I listened to them during release week because of the hype. I didn't buy Pharrel because I thought it sucked...
 
Parasprite

Parasprite

macrumors 68000
Mar 5, 2013
1,698
144
usamaah said:
This makes Amazon Prime an even better deal. What a brilliant idea. Although I like being able to try out new music right away, most of the music I listen to tends to be >6mo anyway since I'm always playing catch up to music.

Not really for the music junkies maybe but a great deal for those who casually want to listen to music.
Click to expand...

I only know of 1 album I have an interest in listening to that was released within 6 months, and I own it.

I think this is a great step in the right direction.

----------
malexandria said:
new people like Imagine Dragons
Click to expand...

Speaking of played to death...
 
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