Mountain View, California — Quite surprisingly, in the midst of all the new stuff that Google announced on Monday, a very important piece of info that was tucked in all of the other Android madness, is that the search engine company has ended a year-long stalemate with Warner Music Group, finally inked a deal that would allow the record company for distribution of their artist’s work through Google Play.
Perhaps the most telling for Google is that it just got one of the key pieces of its digital music puzzle in place when it quietly tucked within Google’s Nexus blowout this morning was this nugget: the search giant has finally endorsed a deal to bring full music catalog of the Warner Music Group–one of the three remaining top music-recording companies–with new songs coming each day–to its Play store.
This means that Google is now partnered with all of the major music labels. In fact, Warner and Google have been at odds for years. Warner once pulled its music videos off YouTube. The company’s songs were conspicuously missing from Google Music when the service, which has now been folded into Google Play, was launched a year ago.
As a matter of fact, Google’s music service, which has been grappling to gain influence against iTunes, Amazon and the myriad of other digital services, it is an important step. It means that Google’s millions of Android users–whose devices do not have iTunes–will finally have an essentially complete catalog of MP3s to buy.
“We are now working with all of the major record labels globally, and all the major U.S. magazine publishers, as well as many independent labels, artists and publishers,” wrote Andy Rubin, the company’s senior vice president for mobile and digital content.
Google’s music library is now complete with tunes from all the major labels. Also, music fans would be able to sift through hundreds of artists that will now be added to Google Play’s already large selection of music, and it will now include bands and musicians like Green Day, Madonna, Neil Young, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers just to name a few. Google’s Rubin says that the company is “now working with all of the major record labels globally, and all the major US magazine publishers, as well as many independent labels, artists and publishers.”
Google also announced on its blog that Google Play music is coming to Europe on November 13. Music enthusiasts in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain will be able to start listening and buying music from the Google Play store, and they will also be able to use the free 20,000 song upload limit that other users take advantage of to get their personal music library connected to their Google account.
Additionally, in Europe, it will introduce “scan and match,” an essential feature for cloud music. It matches songs on a customer’s computer to a master database on Google’s servers, allowing users to skip the laborious task of uploading every single song. (The feature will not be ready in the United States until “soon after” its introduction in Europe on Nov. 13, Rubin wrote.
This conciliatory move is important because buyers of mobile phones and tablets have come to expect convenient and inexpensive ways of stuffing their devices full of movies, music, and e-books. Apple and Amazon, Google’s top competitors in the mobile market, also offer a wide range of entertainment content.
Admittedly, the turnaround in the relationship between Google and the entertainment sector seems to have hinged on two important changes. First, Google has continued to step up anti-piracy efforts in recent years. The second is that the worldwide popularity of Android, Google’s mobile operating system, is impossible for entertainment companies to ignore.