the preexisting database (of hashes or fingerprints) will avoid duplicate file uploads. it's easy to identify identical server files (with the hashes method) and file hosters such as MU (Megaupload.com) already make use of it, e.g. for files with the same name. with song contents it's a different story because a CD-ripped track has much tolerance in duration (±3 secs.), bitrate, encoder, format, tags, and other specs -- and can still represent the same song from the same album. Amazon Cloud Drive / Amazon Cloud Player is interested in licensing this suggested kind of technology (from whomever comes up with such an intelligent software) and Google as well. In any case the cautious user is advised to upload exclusively songs which he/she owns, for example in form of personal/manual rips from purchased physical CDs.
So far, Music Beta and Amazon Cloud Drive are nothing but modern storage space, not very different from zshare.net or myspace (and others: megaupload, rapidshare, ..). According to
insider infos, news and rumors in near future all three companies will offer streaming music subscriptions:
+ Google (thru Goom / Google Music. not Music Beta.)
+ Apple iTunes (thru Lala.com and or iCloud.com)
+ Amazon (thru Amazon Cloud Music)
And i will be one of the first to show you how to download their music streams in original server file quality (crc32) without paying
