November 16, 2011

Link

Google announced that it is opening its Music service to everyone for free for up to 20,000 songs. In addition, the company is adding a music marketplace through the Android Market, adding a catalog of millions of songs.

The company announced content partners including Universal, EMI and Sony Music. In addition to big labels, Google has also signed on with smaller, independent labels. Warner Music was not listed as a launch partner.

The service launches with access to around 13 million tracks, with more to come, Google executive Zahavah Levine said at a news conference.

The company also announced that it will be offering free tracks from artists such as the Rolling Stones, Coldplay, Busta Rhymes, Shakira, Pearl Jam and the Dave Matthews Band.

The Rolling Stones will be pushing six unreleased live concerts to the site from now to 2012. A single from Busta Rhymes is free to download immediately.

Users will be able to put iTunes music into their music lockers, and the Music Manager is even supposed to retain users’ playlists and ratings.

For independent artists, Google will let musicians create their own profiles for $25, upload their own music and set their own pricing. Artists will keep 70 percent of revenue generated from the service.

As for the music store, Google is curating the store using recommendations from staff members and personalized recommendations based on artists you’ve indicated that you like.

Hooking in its social network, Google+, the company is also making it easy to share songs either publicly or with select groups of friends through the network’s Circles feature.

Users will be able to share music from the purchasing screen — even whole albums.

The Google service will also have some exclusive content such as interviews or reviews created by “professional music geeks,” similar to what’s already available on its Google Magnifier service.

The company also announced that T-Mobile customers will soon be able to pay for their music purchases directly through their phone bills, as they currently can with purchases from the Android Market.

Google Music has been in its beta form for months, providing users with a place to upload their music and that is accessible from their computers and mobile Android devices.

The revamped Android Market, music-sharing platform and music manager will all roll out to U.S. users over the next few days.

[Edited 11/17/11 13:29pm]

[Edited 11/16/11 15:56pm]

Wondered when they were gonna announce it...

I'm sure Prince forced Warner Bros. not to work with google

[Edited 11/17/11 10:26am]

they announced it today ... its been in beta for a while now

I've had this since the spring and I thought it was open to the public already lol

Yes, it had been available in an invite-only beta since May of this year.

Digital Executives Excited, Optimistic About Google Music

November 17, 2011

Link

It's official: Google is in the digital music business.

At an event in Los Angeles on Wednesday the company unveiled a new MP3 store that is integrated with its existing cloud storage service.

The company showed off social features that allow purchased songs to be shared with friends, and it debuted a new platform for independent artists that allows them to sell music without a middleman.

But most notable aspect of Wednesday's announcement was the very fact that such a major company is now intimately involved in digital music and working with rights holders. "It's positive to see that level of investment coming into the music industry," Merlin CEO Charles Caldas tells Billboard.biz.

"The launch of Google's music service is a good thing, a very good thing," TuneCore CEO Jeff Price says via email. Price believes Google is helping shift the focus from the label to the artist. "The goal here is to allow artists to get heard, shared, discovered and paid. I am thrilled to have TuneCore be in a deal with Google."

Rob Wells, the president of global digital business at the Universal Music Group, said during the event that Universal is "immensely please" to be a part of the launch and expects it to be a "rich new revenue stream" for its artists. And he noted that Google Music will be yet another option for consumers to buy and experience music. "Any new legitimate place to consume music is a fantastic anti-piracy tool," he said.

The announcement is also momentous because Google is giving a massive mobile audience access to a legitimate service. Iris Distribution president Matt Laszuk tells Billboard.biz that smartphones will be to the next era of digital music what mobile devices were to the MP3 player era. "I'm hoping Google's music play brings the integrated digital music experience to Android users," he says.

Google's vast footprint puts the music service in a unique position. IODA CEO Kevin Arnold thinks it's good that Google Music is integrated and in peoples' faces. And they have the ability to push music in ways such as search, Google properties and partners such as T-Mobile.

"Everybody feels it's a bit of an untapped opportunity," Arnold tells Billboard.biz. For independent artists and labels, he feels the Google Music team will be set on exposing and promoting good music. "They've always been intent on putting an indie focus in there," he says.

Of course, some people may look at Google's recent history with content owners and take more of a wait-and-see approach. Robert Levine, former Billboard executive editor and author of Free Ride, a new book about the content industry's battles with technology companies, sent out a statement Wednesday afternoon that noted how Google Music reflects a changing attitude about content within the company.

"Just recently, it refused to remove an app dedicated to copyright infringement from its Android app store," Levine stated. "So it will be interesting to see how this partnership works -- and whether Google can build the kind of relationships it needs to be able to compete with Apple's iTunes."

I have a feeling that this whole thing with "Cloud" technology is going 2 come back 2 haunt a lot of people.

I'm NOT buying into it on any level.

Funny how with the internet everybody has become so supportive. Everybody wants to share.

I remember, by the end of the 90's, when a friend of a friend had a copy of the famous U2 bootleg Achtung Baby Outtakes. He refused to make a copy for me!!!

But now people are better. I'm glad to live in the internet era.

[Edited 11/17/11 10:48am]

Javi said:

Funny how with the internet everybody has become so supportive. Everybody wants to share.

I remember, by the end of the 90's, when a friend of a friend had a copy of the famous U2 bootleg Achtung Baby Outtakes. He denied making a copy for me!!!

But now people are better. I'm glad to live in the internet era.

Yeah I notice there's a different energy when it comes to the internet.

Graycap23 said:

I have a feeling that this whole thing with "Cloud" technology is going 2 come back 2 haunt a lot of people.

I'm NOT buying into it on any level.

That's true too. Doesn't look very appetizing.

Graycap23 said:

I have a feeling that this whole thing with "Cloud" technology is going 2 come back 2 haunt a lot of people.

I'm NOT buying into it on any level.

I don't think it would sound any worse than an MP3 but all this digitizing of music does is make it cheaper to reproduce and cheaper sounding, but not cheaper to buy.

NDRU said:

Graycap23 said:

I have a feeling that this whole thing with "Cloud" technology is going 2 come back 2 haunt a lot of people.

I'm NOT buying into it on any level.

I don't think it would sound any worse than an MP3 but all this digitizing of music does is make it cheaper to reproduce and cheaper sounding, but not cheaper to buy.

I'm not talking about from a sound standpoint. There are companies like one I'm consulting for talking putting company PRIVATE data on Cloud based storage. That is a hackers dream 2 have data just sitiing out there waiting 4 them 2 break into it. I think it's a big mistake.

Graycap23 said:

NDRU said:

I don't think it would sound any worse than an MP3 but all this digitizing of music does is make it cheaper to reproduce and cheaper sounding, but not cheaper to buy.

I'm not talking about from a sound standpoint. There are companies like one I'm consulting for talking putting company PRIVATE data on Cloud based storage. That is a hackers dream 2 have data just sitiing out there waiting 4 them 2 break into it. I think it's a big mistake.

yeah my company too. like online banking, it's easy but might come around to bite us on the butt somewhere down the road

Graycap23 said:

NDRU said:

I don't think it would sound any worse than an MP3 but all this digitizing of music does is make it cheaper to reproduce and cheaper sounding, but not cheaper to buy.

I'm not talking about from a sound standpoint. There are companies like one I'm consulting for talking putting company PRIVATE data on Cloud based storage. That is a hackers dream 2 have data just sitiing out there waiting 4 them 2 break into it. I think it's a big mistake.

I feel if you enter your credit card to buy something online (which is what they'll probably ask for), it'll be easier for hackers to get into your account, especially if you log out of the site, and steal your card information.

• The Rolling Stones are offering an exclusive, never-before-released live concert album, Brussels Affair (Live, 1973), including a free single, “Dancing with Mr. D.” This is the first of six in an unreleased concert series that will be made available exclusively through Google Music over the coming months.
• Coldplay fans will find some original music that’s not available anywhere else: a free, live recording of “Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall”, a five-track live EP from their recent concert in Madrid and a remix of “Paradise” by Tiësto.
• Busta Rhymes’s first single from his upcoming album, Why Stop Now (feat. Chris Brown), is available for free.
• Shakira’s live EP from her recent concert in Paris and her new studio single, “Je L’Aime à Mourir” are both being offered up free.
• Pearl Jam are releasing a live album from their 9/11/11 concertin Toronto, free to Google Music users.
• Dave Matthews Band are offering up free albums from two live concerts, including new material from Live On Lakeside.
• Tiësto is offering up a new mix, “What Can We Do” (feat. Anastacia), exclusively to Google Music users.