Here’s a smattering of what’s been happening in the music-tech-policy universe…

Amazon Writes Letter to Labels; Google Pushes Pause?
Amazon recently composed a letter to music labels addressing why they aren’t seeking licenses from content owners for their Cloud Drive and Cloud Player. Their reasoning is twofold: 1. As an “external hard-drive in the cloud,” Cloud Drive is a storage service for all digital files, like that of Google Docs or Microsoft SkyDrive. 2. As a media management and playback app, it is comparable to Windows Media Player which does not require licenses from content owners. All in all, they made it loud and clear they are NOT seeking licenses for either the Cloud Drive or Player.
Paul Resnikoff, Digital Music News

…Which brings us to Google. Recent reports suggested that Google’s music service — rumored to be a locker-style offering — was moving closer to launch (one indicator was Google’s purchase of PushLife, a mobile music startup). Now, Digital Music News is reporting that licensing negoatiations with the major labels have taken a “backwards” direction. Could this have anything to do with Amazon’s position regarding Cloud Drive? Oh, the intrigue!
Paul Resnikoff, Digital Music News

YouTube’s Copyright School Vid “Disliked”
The March release of YouTube’s official video “YouTube Copyright School” has garnered 1,184 “dislikes”(with 320 likes at the time of this post). According to an article by Fast Company, that is an almost “four-to-one ratio of hatred” in response to this video, which aims to educate the masses on the sticky issue of copyright infringement. Fast Company first posited that people didn’t like the fact that it was a cartoon (this was quickly disproved due to the popularity of other animated vids) then wondered if people just don’t like copyright talk (nope, there’s a highly-liked, low-quality, two-hour-long copyright 101 video right on YouTube). As to the ultimate reason, the magazine punts: “we ultimately must decline to render a definitive conclusion.” As do we.
David Zax, Fast Company

XM Satellite Radio to Pay $3.6 Million to Indies
Indie label licensing company Merlin — along with other record labels whose sound recordings were played by XM Satellite Radio between the years 2006-2010 — may get a slice of a $3.6 million pie, as the result of a class action settlement. Because the song storing service Pioneer Inno does more than simple streaming — meaning, users were allowed to “capture and play songs on-demand” — the suit says XM should have restructured their compensation arrangements to reflect this difference.
Alexandra Osorio, Digital Music News