MP3tunes Debuts Online Music Storage

[Chris Gohlke]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.betanews.com/article/MP3tunes_Debuts_Online_Music_Storage/1133374390' target='_blank'>http://www.betanews.com/article/MP3tunes_Debuts_Online_Music_Storage/1133374390</a><br /><br /></div><i>"MP3.com founder Michael Robertson is reviving an old service with a new twist as part of his new venture called MP3tunes. The company on Wednesday launched Oboe, an online music storage locker that offers syncing and streaming capabilities. But is Robertson setting himself up for another attack by the RIAA? The new service is designed to rid users of having to carry around their music around wherever they go. "It makes more sense to safely store your music online and sync it or stream it to all the places you listen to music, which is exactly what Oboe makes possible," Robertson says."</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/mp3tunes_logo.gif" /><br /><br />I don't see much use in a service like this. The only place I could foresee this being useful is to stream all of your music to your computer at work. But, I doubt most IT departments would be too excited about having their users on a service like. So, at $39.95/year, do any of you see a need for this, if so, why?

[MyquiH]

I _loved_ this service back when mp3.com had it. You basically typed in a UPC of your CD, and if that CD was in their database, bingo, the tracks appeared in your library. I used it for, just as you said, to stream choonz from places other than home (read: work).

The troubles it ran into came from the fact that people would just email out lists of UPC codes, thus giving everyone access to each other's music even more easily than the nasty process of downloading a file over P2P.

Not sure how they plan on getting around that sort of problem, or traditional problems of account sharing (say you and 12 of your friends all share the same login). The latter can be overcome, but uniquely identifying which songs an individual "owns" will be tricky.