THE Apple iPad, which goes on sale April 3, will access video, applications and Web sites wirelessly – no cords or cables needed. But to move your trusty old music collection onto this wonder gadget and take it with you to work, or on vacation, you’ll have to pull out a U.S.B. sync cable, plug the device into your PC and transfer those music files over.
預定4月3日正式推出的蘋果iPad可以無線連接電視、各種應用工具及網站，不需要任何傳輸線。然而如果要將你收集的心愛老歌轉存到這種神奇的機件，帶著它工作或度假，你必須拿出一條USB同步傳輸線，把它接到你的個人電腦，然後轉移這些音樂檔案。

It becomes worse when you buy a song on the tablet and then want to make sure it’s on your other devices as well. Apple could probably ditch the idea of synching altogether, if it only had the kind of Internet music service that everyone anticipates but which has not yet caught on: what techies call music in the cloud.
如果你透過平板電腦買一首歌，而且想確定它也存在於你的其他裝置上，問題會變得比較棘手。如果備有人人期待但迄未蔚為風尚的網路音樂服務，也就是科技迷所說的「雲端音樂」，蘋果公司很可能完全放棄「同步」的構想。

Such a service lets people store their music collections on the Web and then stream the songs to any computer, phone, tablet or the coming wave of Internet-connected radios.
這種服務使人們得以將他們收集的音樂貯存於網路，然後讓歌曲串流到任何電腦、手機、平板電腦或即將來臨的網路電台。

But the music industry must first work out practical and affordable licensing terms with tech companies that want to develop cloud music services.
然而唱片公司首先必須與有意開發雲端音樂服務的科技公司洽商，訂下可行而且負擔得起的許可條件。

Michael Robertson, an online music entrepreneur, says he doesn’t believe that such economical licensing agreements are possible. In 2000, his former company MP3.com opened a service to let people play any song on the Web if they could prove they owned it. The site, which settled lawsuits brought by major record labels, was eventually acquired by Vivendi Universal.
網路音樂企業家羅伯森認為，雙方不太可能達成這種合乎經濟效益的許可協議。2000年，他當時經營的MP3.com開辦一項服務，使民眾可在網路播放任何歌曲，條件是他們必須證明自己擁有這些歌曲。這個網站曾經與幾家提出訴訟的大型唱片公司達成和解，最後被威望迪環球公司買下。

“Music companies want consumers to pay more,” Mr. Robertson said. “They consider a copy in the cloud, played multiple times, to essentially be a song that has been bought multiple times.”
羅伯森表示：「音樂公司希望消費者多付一些。它們認為一首歌曲在雲端重複播放，形同多次購買。」

Mr. Robertson now runs a service called MP3tunes. Customers who take the time to upload their digital music to his servers – the first two gigabytes of storage are free – can then play the music on any computer, iPhone or Android device, and even on a selection of Internet radios and the Nintendo Wii.
羅伯森目前經營一種名為MP3tune的服務。只要消費者願意花時間將他們的數位音樂上載到他的伺服器（前2個10億位元免費），他們就可以在任何電腦、iPhone或Android裝置，甚至經過挑選的網路電台及任天堂Wii上播放音樂。

There’s just one problem, as the labels see it. Because Mr. Robertson is just giving consumers a way to listen to music they already own, he never believed he needed licenses from the labels. (He cites the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which allows consumers to make digital copies of material they own.) EMI, one of the major music labels, stepped forward for the industry and sued MP3tunes over this approach in 2007. The case is pending.
可是在唱片公司看來，這其中有一個問題。羅伯森只是讓消費者擁有另一個欣賞個人已有歌曲的管道，因此始終不認為他必須取得唱片公司的許可。（他引用「數位千禧年著作權法」。該法允許消費者製作自有材料的數位拷貝。）2007年，百代唱片公司（EMI）特別針對這一點代表業界出面控告MP3tune。全案還在審理中。

Executives at music labels like Warner Music, the Universal Group and Sony Music say they are willing to offer reasonable licensing terms for cloud music. “We are definitely looking for the next wave of innovation to improve the quality of service that consumers are getting from legitimate music offerings,” says one executive, who did not want to be identified because private licensing conversations were continuing.
華納音樂、環球集團、索尼音樂等幾家大型唱片公司的高級主管表示，他們願意為雲端音樂提供合理的許可條件。其中一名因為非公開許可談判還在進行而要求匿名的主管表示：「我們絕對正在積極尋找下一波的創新，以提高消費者自合法音樂管道獲得的服務品質。」

A final obstacle to this vision of cloud music is the issue of interoperability. Music stored on the servers of one company should play on phones and devices made by another.
這種雲端音樂的理想所面臨的最後一道障礙，是相容(互通)性這個問題。儲存在某公司伺服器內的音樂應該也能夠以另一家公司生產的手機及裝置播放。

But will it? Apple, which bought the streaming music service Lala last year, has plans to move people’s iTunes collections into the cloud later this year. Considering that Apple’s business is based on selling its own hardware, Apple stream music to, say, Android phones.
然而真會如此嗎？蘋果公司去年併購線上音樂串流業者Lala，打算今年稍後將人們以iTune收集的歌曲轉移到雲端。由於蘋果的營收以行銷自己的硬體為基礎，蘋果公司可能不願意讓消費者將音樂串流到Android手機。

“In two years there will be a giant tanker truck coming from Asia loaded with $30 devices that will go on every nightstand and plug right into the cloud,” Mr. Robertson said. “The music system that allows those devices to freely interoperate with your media – songs, video, even photos – is going to win. There’s just no question.”
羅伯森表示：「2年之內，一輛巨型槽罐車會滿載價值30美元的裝置從亞洲而來。每一個床頭櫃都會有這種裝置，連上雲端。允許這些裝置與你的媒體 ─ 包括歌曲、電視甚至照片 ─ 自由互動的音樂系統，絕對會是最後贏家。這一點毋庸置疑。」

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/14/business/14ping.html

2010-03-30/聯合報/G5版/UNITEDDAILYNEWS 陳世欽 原文請見紐時周報七版左