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Digital
Google Music being tested
By CMU Editorial | Published on Monday 28 March 2011
Team Google are busy testing their new music service – a music-based digital locker – according to CNET, leading many to speculate that a launch is now imminent.
Insiders say Google bosses had originally hoped to have their new music offer ready to demo at this month’s South By Southwest, but are still hoping to go live this spring despite missing that deadline. As previously reported, a member of the XDA Developers forum recently said he had accidentally stumbled across a beta version of the Google music locker, and reported that it was already basically working. Insiders say that that platform is the one now being tested by Google staffers.
That said, it is more likely to be licensing rather than technological challenges that delay the launch of Google Music. As previously reported, the labels remain cautious about digital locker services, and many are uncertain about what kind of royalty they should be charging for such a platform – especially given the ongoing EMI v MP3Tunes litigation, in which one party is arguing no royalty needs to be paid at all.
It seems unlikely Google has any labels signed up to their locker service as yet.
