Around the Net
Google Tests Google Music
- All Things D, Friday, March 25, 2011 12:20 PM
Google has reportedly begun testing Google Music internally, but whether existing music services should be worried remains to be seen. Taking the news as a sign "that the much anticipated service is nearly ready to launch," CNet writes: "Employees at the online behemoth have begun a process commonly referred to in Silicon Valley as dog-fooding, in which employees try out a new service or product."
"Google wants to operate a ‘locker' music service, which gives users access to all of their personal music files from a cloud-based server, and has begun testing the service internally," writes MediaMemo. "But just like Spotify, Google can't launch without label deals -- or, at least, it doesn't want to launch without label deals-and so far it doesn't have anything locked down."
"The service will most likely be unveiled at Google I/O, the company's big conference for developers in May," Business Insider suggests. Negotiations with at least some of the top publishers and with the four largest record labels are ongoing, according to CNet, citing sources. "The delays are largely due to the complexity of the subject matter," it writes. "Google is after cloud music rights and not just for songs acquired from Google Music."
"Even with those setbacks," 9to5Mac writes, "Apple is best poised to bring such a service to the market due to its marketing muscle, the iTunes ecosystem and the leading status it enjoys in the music industry."
As Digital Trends notes, CNet's report is corroborated by comments made by Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha, who mentioned to the Guardian last month that Google had a "music service" in the works. Also, "A recent report from Billboard, which named executives rumored to be working on Google Music, adds further evidence that the streaming service is on its way."
If the user is storing on the cloud media in their possession, Lawrence Lessig has clearly defined the right to make a copy as covered by existing precedence in current law.
Why Google needs the copyright owners to allow users to do this seems a non-starter. After all, web backup services allow you to backup anything on your computer, including media files.
Perhaps this is more of a social media "sharing" issue meaning that my media is accessible by people who are linked to the user but do not "own" what they access.
A simple solution is to limit the number if simultaneous users of the cloud service to one at any time accessing the user's media (music files).