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Digital
Developers get sneaky preview of Google Tunes
By CMU Editorial | Published on Wednesday 9 March 2011
So, it’s not just new albums that leak. An IT programmer has stumbled upon (or deviously hacked into, possibly) Google’s in development music locker service, seemingly by installing a new version of the web giant’s Android operating system designed for tablet computers onto an old Android-powered mobile phone.
As much previously reported, we’ve know for ages now (since the early 1920s, I think) that Google is planning some sort of music service, and it’s seemed increasingly likely of late that that service will take the form of a digital locker, whereby users can upload their MP3 collections to the cloud, and download or stream that music to any net-connected device.
Such a service would fit nicely into Google’s existing cloud-storage business, and would probably result in much lower licensing costs than a Spotify-style streaming service (indeed some argue digital lockers don’t need any licences from music companies, though the music companies do not agree).
According to Business Insider, the programmer who claims to have seen the Google music locker that is in development has reported on the XDA Developers Forum that he successfully uploaded 785 tracks from his phone’s memory to a central server and could then play them back via his phone over the net (he deleted the tracks from the phone itself to be certain). Other IT types have seemingly copied this programmer’s approach and have similarly got a glimpse of the Google music storage service.
It seems that the current version can only sync with a phone and not a PC, and actually uploads every track. Some reckon digital lockers of the future will actually scan a user’s music folder first and any tracks that are already on a central server (which will usually be most of them) won’t actually be uploaded, rather the locker service would just give users access to them via its existing music bank, thus reducing upload time and bandwidth costs.
Though such a system is even more complicated in licensing terms, and given the best way to handle licensing talks with labels over brand new digital services is to go step by step, it’s possible Google have gone for the more basic approach for legal rather than technical reasons – ie get the labels on board for more simple cloud storage first, then push them into more complicated territory down the road.
Google Music does not currently have any official launch date, though Billboard has noted in recent months that the web firm has been quietly putting in place an executive team to run it.
