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Google Music Launches: Free Cloud Storage, 320kps Downloads & D.I.Y. Artist Hub

image from www.google.com(UPDATED) Google Music left beta this afternoon touting music discovery, unique sharing options, mobile payments and a direct to fan sales hub for independent artists. In a move that bests Apple, Google's cloud service is free for up to 20,000 songs and available for streaming on all platforms including iOS. 320kps music download purchases have been incorporated into the Android app store.

Music Available At Launch

The service launches with 8 million tracks Sony, UMG, EMI, Merlin and dozens of indie labels via distributors IODA, InGrooves and The Orchard. Representatives of EMI, Universal and Merlin where on stage with Google Music execs during the launch announcement.

Google's Direct To Fan Artist Hub

Unique among major music services, Google has created the Google Music Artist Hub where artists can create landing pages, upload, stream, set the sale price and sell direct ot fans. There is a one time $25 registration fee and 70% of each sale is paid to the artist. Sale links will be added to YouTube's new merch store soon.

Music Discovery

Google emphasized music discovery and sharing during today's presentation. When a tracks or albums are purchased on Google, users can email and/or send friends on their Google+ stream a free onetime full length play. Tracks, albums and playlists in the cloud can also be marked for offline play and synch automatically.

The Rolling Stones, Coldplay, Pearl Jam, Dave Mathews and others are giving away live tracks. Busta Rhymes is debuting his new album free on Google Music.

Mobile With T Mobile

Google announced that T Mobile users will be able to pay for music on their mobile phone bill and hinted a futehr partnerships powered by their Android mobile platform.

Bruce Houghton on 11/16/2011 in Uncategorized | Permalink | Comments (14)
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14 Comments

  2. I absolutely love the fact you don’t need an agregator to get on there. You can just upload your stuff yourself. And google pays you directly. No need for tunecore or CD baby!!!! Agree 100% with Lola

  3. until the physical CD dies completely (which it will) CD Baby will still have the task of doing the leg work of mailing out actual product. Depending on your outflow…you may want to keep CD BABY around for a bit.
    IF google music syncs in conjunction with youtube it will be unstoppable!

  4. WOW! Din’t think about it till you just said it. If they sync youtube and Google music. They will be unstopable. Are they planning on doing this?

  7. and if they offered a 3 day direct pay from fan to artist account, minus googles 30% fee with sounscan and bds accounting. bye bye all digital distributors. oh i see the new future.

  8. Come one folks. I think we need to get over crowning things in the tech world as “game changers” until they can actually be proven as such. Google Wave, Google Buzz, and Google+ have all been labeled game changers on launch by the media, but so far have proven the opposite. There have been countless companies that have rolled out products that could potentially eliminated the DIY middleman, but they have not done so. In fact, artist have been able to upload music directly to Amazon MP3 for years (hello Createspace?), but no one talks about it or really cares. Have you ever thought that maybe these “DIY middle men” provide other services artist want or know the artist community better than a company like Google? As far as digital stores go, let’s get real, iTunes is the golden ticket.
    In my mind, what Google did today is more of a threat to someone like Bandcamp than CD Baby or Tunecore. They gave artist an easy way to upload some tracks with a little more potential visibilty and a sales option. It’s useful if you just want to get some feedback or some demos up, but a real release still has to be on iTunes. Both CD Baby and Tunecore announced that Google Music will be included with their standard distribution, so with no financial advantage to going direct with Google, what’s the point? It just becomes one more meaningless account to manage.

  9. DIY artists really must start to think about their publishing rights too! I believe google is currently worth about £120 billion & have paid sooooooooo little to content providers & done such terrible deals with the global collection agencies that only 2 people in the PRS in the UK actually even know the deal!

  10. This is looking like a game changer. But before everyone (well indie artists) starts getting excited, let’s remember that this will be a VERY crowded space. The issue has never been where to sell the music, it hass been how do you rise above the fray and stand out. Every “artist” and their grandmother uploading to Google Music makes is more difficult for you to stand out and if you couldn’t sell music last year, Google Music does not change that for you.

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