Amazon tops iTunes Match offer with more storage

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SEATTLE (AP) — Amazon.com Inc. has updated its cloud music player to mimic Apple Inc.'s iTunes Match, but is offering 10 times more storage space for the same price.

Songs purchased on Amazon.com have always been stored for free on its servers for playback on mobile devices. Now the online retailer will scan a person's computer and automatically match songs found there on the person's storage space in the cloud.

Like iTunes Match, Amazon will upgrade songs of lesser quality found on computers or existing cloud lockers to files encoded at 256 kilobits per second.

The price is the same as iTunes Match at $25 a year.

But Amazon.com offers free storage for 250 songs bought elsewhere, and will store 250,000 songs for paying customers. ITunes Match tops out at 25,000 songs.