The search engine giant is planning to go a step ahead in regards to its rivalry with Apple. This move would however have Google competing with Amazon.com even as Google is creating an online music store. However, Google might not push in a full fledged entry in the field as according to people familiar with the matter, the company might open the service without the rights to sell songs from many of the biggest record labels. New Your Times reported Google’s said plans on Thursday.
The same sources noted that four of the major music companies have been in talks with the search engine giant to license their catalogs for the new online store. But strangely Google is closing in a deal only with the smallest, Citigroup Inc.’s EMI Group. The said group has a decent artist list which includes Katy Perry, Gorillaz and Pink Floyd.
Other 3 major music companies are no where close to reaching a deal with Google, but their attempts are still in process to strike a deal. These companies are Vivendi SA’s Universal Music Group, Sony Corp.’s Sony Music and Access Industries Inc.’s Warner Music Group.
With Google jumping into the field of online-music business, the competitiveness hits a new high. Its biggest competitors here is arc rival Apple and along with it Amazon.com. The process would be quite similar as Apple and Amazon creates services, which combines retail sales and remote music storage, known as “cloud” or “locker” services.
Amazon, with its recent unveiling of Kindle Fire, noted that the company would give its tablet users free storage via its Amazon cloud, whereas Apple with its iOS 5, has opted to give its users access to iCloud. Apple’s iCloud however has a lot to offer as compared to its competitors, may it be Google or Amazon.
Talking about the licensing, Apple has the upper hand once again, as the company has secured licensing from all the four major music companies, which is not opted by Google or even Amazon. For the users, thus Apple creates a remotely accessible online-music libraries without going through a time-consuming uploading process. In case of Google’s Music Beta and Amazon’s Cloud Player, users can store music online, but as the licensing is not done by these cloud providers, users would have to upload most of the music they want to store in the system—if not all of it.
The record labels might be working hard on striking a deal with Google, but when the search engine giant lad its free music-file storage service launched in May, their executives said that Google couldn’t reach a broad agreement with record labels. Jamie Rosenberg, a director of digital content for Google’s Android mobile-software unit, had a point in favor of Google where he noted that at the time Google was in talks with some labels early on, the labels had a few terms which he notes as “terms that we felt were unreasonable or unsustainable.”
One common concern expressed by record executives was that online locker services could offer legitimacy to music acquired via piracy. For the same, Rosenberg said in May that Music Beta, would let people upload up to 20,000 songs, including from their iTunes libraries. However is stressed on music which “is intended only for lawfully acquired music”. He assured that the company would “respond to complaints by rights holders if they feel their rights have been violated.”