Is Amazon Music Streaming Coming this Summer?

We’ve heard for months that Amazon might be launching its own music streaming service as a perk of customers’ Amazon Prime subscriptions. In the wake of news that Apple had finalized its $3 billion acquisition of Beats – and its streaming service Beats Music – a new report today claims that Amazon’s on-demand music service is set for a summer start.

The news comes by way of a report on Buzzfeed, which cites “five music industry sources familiar with the company’s plans.” According to the post, Prime members will enjoy on-demand music as a regular part of their subscriptions, and the service will launch in June or July. But before you get too excited, this seems to be more of a value add rather than something to lure in new users on its own strengths. The post says that the music available for streaming must be at least six months old. That means if Kanye drops a new album in July, you won’t be able to hear it on Amazon’s music streaming service until at least January, and maybe not even then.

The post also says that Amazon has struck deals with Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group, while Universal Music Group has yet to be confirmed as being on board. Independent labels will also reportedly supply their music to Amazon’s streaming service, but none are named. Even still, don’t be surprised to see that your favorite indie has musicians appearing on Amazon’s music streaming service, especially when you consider how big an opportunity that might be for a lesser known artist or catalogue.

Finally, the post claims that part of the deal with the labels stipulates that Amazon will have the opportunity to make different music selections available at different times, and that the service will be accessible across multiple devices, just like that of Amazon Prime Video.

In the end, though, we won’t know any of this for sure until Amazon makes an announcement. Will we be listening to playlists made on Amazon Prime this summer? We may know more soon enough, as June is right around the corner…

[Source: Buzzfeed]