Half-baked: Google Music launching without Sony and Warner

“Google sent invitations [Friday] for a press event, to be held in Los Angeles, where the company is expected to add downloads to its cloud music service, as well as unveil social-networking features,” Greg Sandoval reports for CNET.

“CNET has learned that Google has signed a licensing agreement for the new service with Universal Music Group but does not have deals in place with Sony Music Entertainment or Warner Music Group, according to multiple industry sources,” Sandoval reports. “It is unclear whether EMI would participate. Talks between Sony, Warner and Google continue, the sources said.”

Sandoval reports, “Google is once again launching a major part of its music service without acquiring licenses and this may serve to widen the rift between the company and some of the labels. Google launched the test version of its cloud music service earlier this year without licenses.”

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: Our Lady of Perpetual Beta strikes again.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “NixoN” for the heads up.]

13 Comments

  1. MDN take: Careful now. Isn’t Siri still in beta? And iCloud is about as beta as it gets (whether Apple is calling it that or not I am uncertain). Yet Apple has unleashed these products upon the masses. Hmm. Seems that Apple is taking a cue from Google with recent releases. Hope this isn’t the trend of the future.

    1. It’s in beta, but both iCloud and Siri likely have all their licenses in place before use in development, and well before release to the publich.

      For example, Wolfram Alpha and Yelp are fully licensed, as well licenses from all the major labels for iCloud.

      AAPL isn’t taking its cue from GOOG — one gets licenses, the other doesn’t bother getting them in the first place or just steam rolls ahead when they can’t.

      AAPL’s beta release is a much different animal than GOOG’s beta release. For AAPL it’s a product that needs more development to get it to the baked product according to AAPL’s standards, while GOOG is displaying another product release that is both a beta (development) release and half-baked (half-illegal) release.

    1. Haha! I actually watched the video of Google and Samsung unveil Ice Cream Sandwich and the Galaxy Nexus. Talk about pathetic! They need to watch a few more Apple product launch events to learn how to introduce their new products with some style.

  2. It is unclear whether EMI would participate.

    …particularly since Citibank is reportedly in the middle of negotiating selling off pieces of EMI to the other three remaining big music corporations.

  3. Who would download music from a Google service anyways? When I think of music, the very last thing to enter my mind is Google.

    Search, email (fading away for me), and that’s about it.

    Definitely not music or social networking. It’s like LinkedIn launching a music service or something. Stale environment.

  4. Funny….. because all major labels (except Warner) are in Android Market! lol…. and you can stream music and share it with your Google+ friends! 😀 …..can’t do that with Apple’s Cloud service!

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