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Google Starts Testing Google Music Internally
Krystalo writes "Google employees have begun testing Google Music internally. Talks with at least some of the top publishers and the four largest record labels are still ongoing. The delays are largely due to the fact that Google is negotiating for cloud music rights and not just the authorization to distribute the songs themselves. The search giant wants to be able to store users' existing music libraries on the company's servers. Labels are in similar discussions with Apple."
Considering that the service is by no means public and the details of it (including pricing) are rumour at best, you sure do know a lot about it.
Agreed. Systems we have seen are far, far better than system we haven't seen. What the hell were Google thinking when they hadn't launched it yet?
"testing Google Music internally."
So where do they put the speakers? I hope they are wireless, and you just have to swallow them . Or maybe a suppository
A new cure for irregularity...
Ok, so it's a streaming service (a la Last.fm & Pandora), you can buy music from (a la Amazon & Apple) with the backing of Google. I get it that because it has Google's ecosystem that it has a really good shot at surviving. What I don't understand is what is *REALLY* going on. These guys are notorious for doing funky stuff that either instantly changes the landscape (Chrome, Picasa) or bombs horribly (Buzz). This smells funny - almost too obvious for Google. There has to be something which truly sets it apart, not another 'me too' product. Maybe it's small label work? I'm not really sure.
I call it 'The Aristocrats'
But there's absolutely nothing about pricing. Mr. Microshill is pulling numbers out of his ass, then trying to shoehorn in some sort of glowing praise for WP7. This is his MO.
Today is red jello day - all workers must eat all of their red jello. Failure to comply will result in five demerits.
. . . to the term, "house music".
So you can put the music you have acquired over the course of your lifetime on there and be able to stream it? Anyone dumb enough to put music they've downloaded illegitimately on there?
Because there have been rumors going around about Apple doing this since since forever. Google's got serious Apple envy: first Android and Android Market then tablets, now "cloud iTunes."
If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
Arguably Amazon offers as much if not more than Google even if they don't offer the same exact things.
You should try Mog.
google music? we won't have music without paying for google music et al. we'll stick with ungooed just plain music for now, thanks
he who controls the trade routes....
Paying? Remember, this is Google we're talking about. The "product" will be a free "beta" app until doomsday...
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
MIcrosoft is not mentioned. Hmmm....
http://michaelrobertson.com/archive.php?minute_id=336
Anything google makes will be better than that crappy program.
Paranoia trumps reading comprehension? He said "Hell, even Zune for Windows Phone 7 has such a streaming service and it's far better than what Google is trying to offer here." That's not exactly the kind of wording one would use to bestow "glowing praise", is it?
Caveat Utilitor
> The delays are largely due to the fact that Google is negotiating for cloud music rights and not just the authorization to distribute the songs themselves.
> The search giant wants to be able to store users' existing music libraries on the company's servers.
Would you mind, Mr. Big Label Representative, if I ask, pardon for jumping in, what the bloody hell does your label have to do with _my_ music collection? May I suggest you shove your bloody greed up your stinking bottom, sir?
Spoken like a true apple zealot. Ever noticed that Jobs has moved into advertising. Hmm, can't think of any company that's been doing that since day 1. Are you upset because Apple is jealous of Google? Of course not, you're a blinkered fanboy.
Apple's "app store" is just copying what Linux has been doing since the 90s. Ah, but they put a paywall on it. So what. The ill fated Lindows did this years before your beloved apple thought of it. Are you crying foal that Apple copied Linux application distribution? No? Fanboy again.
OS X? Copied from an ancient operating system with a terrible dumbed down GUI. Are you booing that Apple copied this, no? Fanboy again.
Ipods? Many years late to the game copying umpteen other portable music players. Heck, Sony were doing them in the 80s. Upset Apple copied others once again?
Mac architecture? Blatant copy of ancient x86 PCs that have been around forever. But Apple screw it up to make it incompatible with standard slots by replacing BiOS with EFI. Upset Apple got it wrong with PPC and ended up copying x86? Yes, yes, no? Fanboy!
Care to name something you believe Apple did first other than successfully manage to build a cult following that cannot see beyond what they're told to see?
Apple produced the first consumer computer with a proper GUI. Apple invented the pull-down menu, ubiquitous across almost all GUIs until the smart phone era. I'm not sure who you think Apple copied OS X from - they bought up NeXT and therefore didn't copy that part of it. If you're repeating the ancient myth that they copied the GUI from Xerox PARC, well for starters as I said there were plenty of new innovations in the Lisa/Mac GUI that built on the PARC GUI (the Alto had a modal button-based GUI more akin to a DOS-style fullscreen interface), secondly they licensed designs and employed ex-PARC people to continue development, which isn't copying.
Might this project morph into a google books scenario? Where google actively scans in all the worlds music and gives everyone access (for money). I realize that the google books thing is on hold till they bribe enough politicians for an enabling law, but that's easy enough (politicians are easy though not cheap).
Google wants to provide you with books, because they want to know what you read. With Search, because they want to know where you "go" online. With free e-mail, to track what you are discussing. And now with music, so they can parse your psycho-demographic profile even more minutely.
They do this in order to sell *you* to the highest bidder, and/or the NSA. They are not a "tech" company, they are an Advertising Company that uses highly invasive technology. Technology which an entire dribbling, drooling, consumerist generation has plugged into their frontal lobes like bit players in a bad PKDick movie. Except that it's not Soylent Green anymore. It's Soylent Shiny.
I keep waiting for our Charleton Heston Moment, but I fear it may never come.
Xerox filed suit against Apple because Apple had never licensed anything related to PARC. The suit was largely in response to Apple suing MS so as to ensure that if Apple was able to win their case that the prime beneficiary would be Xerox. MS ended up winning which mooted the suit which was eventually dismissed. Apple Computer, Inc. v. Microsoft Corporation
Everything? Anybody that claims the iPod is better than other MP3 players of the day hasn't ever actually used the competition. The organization system was ripped off of Creative who had both patented and implemented it before the iPod was released. Granted it's easier to just plug in a player to the USB port and move music over, but that is a trade off and results in the player having to search for new content every single time it turns on.
Thank you, Google. Ever since Apple bought Lala just so they could shutter it, I've been waiting for someone else to fill the gap. Apple will have a hard time buying out the competition this time.
That's not exactly the kind of wording one would use to bestow "glowing praise", is it?
Well, for a comment about Microsoft on Slashdot, it's pretty close.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Since you're posting Wikipedia articles, I'll follow up with this article. To quote: "The first successful commercial GUI product was the Apple... Xerox was allowed to buy pre-IPO stock from Apple, in exchange for engineer visits and an understanding that Apple would create a GUI product. Much later... Xerox also sued Apple... the dismissal of Xerox's legal complaint was not based simply on late filings, but rather a lack of legal merit to Xerox's case as it was presented." So if Wikipedia is to be trusted (debatable) I think my point stands, although it looks like the agreement between Apple and Xerox was more complicated/tenuous than straight licensing.
TFA (yes, I read it/them) partly emphasizes this as competition with Apple - would that part help the consumer, or would it hurt? (It might hurt because it seems Apple's business interests have been acting as a counterweight to the big labels' business interests, a force of resistance that may end up being diluted with the labels facing two separate heavyweights)
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
that you've already paid for it and should have something like this to help you listen to it, without incident?
that you don't listen to big-label stuff anyway?
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
(I understand that audio from whatever source would enable them to test the system internally)
(Internal rather than public might avoid some infringement issues anyway*)
* I am not a lawyer, etc.
Would it make sense for Google to publicly launch this without all of the Big Four on board?
Sometimes with past developments, some of the big four have gotten on board before the others.
P.S.
I wonder how Google's coming along with negotiating with the indies - they're likely to be more cooperative, but not necessarily, and it's simply a large volume to deal with at any rate.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
That article doesn't say what you think it says. An understanding is not a license, and that's the point. Generally when there is a license that gets explicitly stated. You're quite literally the first person I've ever seen try to claim that Apple licensed the technology. It's not unusual for there to be some wheeling and dealing when it comes to IPOs, individual investors rarely if ever get in on the IPO because the assets are spoken for before they hit the market.
From the TFA:
"CNET and others have reported that Google is negotiating for the right to store users' existing music libraries on the company's servers, the sources said."
"Licensing rights for digital lockers of this sort is largely uncharted territory for the labels. There are no templates for these kinds of deals lying around and the record companies want to move cautiously as they assess Apple's and Google's plans."
My brain just exploded.
Did I understand that correctly? Why is that Google need to negotiate a license agreement to store music from customers on their servers? What have the music industry to do if Google wants to store my data for me on their servers?
What is next, Google needs to negotiate rights with the Authors Guild if they want to save text from their customers on their servers and they need to negotiate rights with the BSA if they want to save binary data?
PS:
"Welcoming Google to the party: At the 2009 Vevo launch party, Google CEO Eric Schmidt (center) visited with Doug Morris (left), the then CEO of Universal Music, and Rolf Schmidt-Holtz, former CEO of Sony Music. "
Why do I have the urge to pick up a gun and make some target practice as I saw the CEOs in their black suites?
http://www.mueller-public.de - My site http://www.anr-institute.com/ - Advanced Natural Research Institute
You have to do internal testing to find the brown noise, which is the real purpose of project Google Music.
Havent seen anyone else mention this, but last year google purchased Simplify Media - a cross-platform streaming music/photo app. Continually improving, it _was_ the only decent solution for streaming one's own music collection to any iOS device and also had a nice desktop utility connecting the remote into a local iTunes application (pre-dating Apple's shared libraries).
Yes, but they didn't steal/copy it, did they? I overstated it by saying license, but clearly there was an arrangement between the two companies, later Xerox saw Apple suing Microsoft and wanted in, but their case got thrown out. Clearly the common belief that Apple copied/stole the GUI concept from Xerox is at best an overstatement, and at worst an absolute myth, both because of this agreement or understanding, and also because there were plenty of things in the Mac/Lisa GUI that were new inventions (like pull-down menus).
... at least in China, I've been using it for months. The only catch here is that you can't pay for it and the streaming and downloading seems to be handled by a third party website (something like top100.cn). So I don't really know what they're talking about when they say "internally testing," unless that means that the google music everyone in China knows (and most of them love) is going to be somehow inherently different from what the rest of the world will be getting (though that wouldn't be particularly surprising, considering our internet situation here).
You get no say in where I store data.
...it's called the "CD" or "Compact Disc".
You can buy them on the Interweb or in shops, there's lots of different types depending on what sort of music you like, and they come in a nice hard plastic case that, if you store in reasonably dry conditions out of direct sunlight, automatically act as a backup of your music collection.
I use a piece of software called a "CD Ripper" that allows me to encode the CD to tracks that I can then download to a music player and/or carry about with me much easier.
I also came across a truly amazing device called a "USB Hard Disk" that I can use to backup those encoded tracks onto a second hard disk - but even if both hard disks fail, I can just re-rip my CDs.
Yes, those CDs are amazing things indeed!
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
If google does this right, they could become vene bigger then appl'es itunes with this....if its done right. /. story) would not cut it when you own 1500 mp3s....
They would first have to offer a great business model for keeping access to what you purchased, somehow,
losing your emails (previous
They would almost make money right away by using pointers to files instead of letting people upload their files...sort of like upload to you music book blackeyedpees (which they already have a copy of....) ask you is this the song you want, or is your song a different version of the song...and if you should answer, no its the same song as on the cd...then they would say instantly that your upload is finished and add a pointer to their file and finalise that, you have a copy of it backed up and own it on your google music account...
3rd and last but not least, you would have to figure that they now have access to your library of which the music companies can turn and now say...ok for each copy you backed up we are charging you 3 cents each...which means is a fair price for copyrights, but should you have 1000 or so songs, can be a bit expensive, maybe they could have some sort of capping for this, but it will be inevitable though,, as the music industry is starting to change to the times, they are finding ways to mark and tag what you got and listen to....this being # way.!
Monopoly where? They're trying out new markets. They don't have a monopoly in most of them.
I am not devoid of humor.