Amazon to Drop Its Music Storage Service
Music lovers who have used Amazon's Music Storage service to store their library of digital music will have to move on to elsewhere. The platform will be gradually easing off users from using Amazon as their online storage, starting with a deadline for new subscriptions by Jan. 15, 2018.
Amazon announced their decision to drop Music Storage subscriptions through an update of their customer service page, where the platform detailed the upcoming changes to Music Storage plans, both free and paid.
"The Amazon Music Storage subscription plans (free and paid) are being retired. New subscriptions will be accepted until January 15, 2018. You can upgrade your Amazon Music storage plan, until that time," Amazon explained in their announcement.
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Users will only have until January 2019 to play or download music files they have uploaded to the service, although no exact date has yet been given out, as Ars Technica noted.
Amazon also carefully notes that these changes only affect digital music files uploaded or imported by the users themselves from other sources; music added from Amazon purchases, or imported via Amazon's AutoRip services, will not be affected.
Starting Monday, Dec. 18, users no longer have the ability to upload their own music from the Amazon Music app. Digital music files that have been uploaded before this date can be played or downloaded until January 2019, for members using the free tier Music Storage Plan with its 250 song capacity.
Members of the paid 250,000 song Music Storage Plan, on the other hand, can keep on uploading music as long as they remain a paid member, by renewing their subscriptions. As part of the phase-out, though, users will no longer be able to restart a subscription once it expires.
An expired Amazon Music storage account will then be limited to 250 songs, which can be downloaded and played for one more year after the expiry date. After that, all the songs will be removed. The same also holds for canceled subscriptions.
