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Google Music Downloads To Go Ahead Without Sony Or Warner
An anonymous reader writes "Google has sent out press invitations to an event on Wednesday where it's expected they'll unveil their long-rumored Google Music download service. CNET reports that while Google already has an agreement in place with Universal, talks with Sony and Warner Music Group are still in progress, and won't be finished by the time Google Music launches. 'The negotiations between Google and the labels by and large have not gone well for either side. The labels are eager for a serious iTunes competitor to emerge and believe Google has the technological know-how, money, and Internet presence to give iTunes a run for its money. ... Yet, the company 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. '"
The RIAA is relatively small. Google should just buy the entire thing.
It's their half-assed attempts to create new products, and releasing them way too early. It's not only with Google Music, it seems to be a company wide practice and can be seen with Google+, Google TV, their coding languages, even Android and quite much any product they put out. Gmail was put out with the same tactic, but it actually offered much more than competitors did back then (good amount of space and great interface).
However, every one of Google's recent products just are not offering anything new, anything better or anything more. In most cases it's actually completely reverse. What they offer is a lot less than competitors do. And yet they still continue the bad practice, and are once again starting a new service that offers significantly less. People will just lose interest and never try to product again. I suspect this will happen with Google Music, Google+ and every other product they put out with the same tactic.
Please Google, finish and polish what you start before releasing them!
"The labels are eager for a serious iTunes competitor", OK, why?
So we can see competition and lower prices, unlikely. So they can have a different pricing structure? If it's more than current iTunes, how many people are going to pay more?
Or do they just think, more selling options == more sales?
*shrugs* Possibly they wish to do to Apple what Apple did to Amazon with books . . . force a raise in prices because Publishers no longer have to accept selling at the lower price to sell their product. Personally, though, I don't see it. Apple had specific motives to get the publishers in a war with Amazon to boost device sales. In the digital music world I don't think the particular dynamics involved will apply.
not a giant player who dictates terms to THEM...
Well, they wouldn't be in that position if they'd tried actually innovating over the last decade instead of running around shrieking about piracy. Instead they let another company monopolise their newest distribution channel.
If they want a strong competitor to Apple, they're going to have to play nicely with others and somehow beat Apple on prices or features, neither of which they're likely to let Google do.
Nothing will stick if they will not finish it before it's out in public.
You mean like Gmail, Maps, Search, Google Earth? Those all wore a Beta tag for years and years.
By any definition, I would say they have stuck.
I find it telling that you wanted them to allow your business on G+ from day one, and at the same time fault them for not testing and completing something before releasing it. Clue: They beta tested it with individuals to shake out the bugs and see if it works before unleashing it on businesses.
Then your get all huffy and stomp off because they didn't beta test on your business?!!???
Apparently they care more about the integrity of your business than you do!
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
That didn't stop them when they bought Doubleclick. You know all that big brother advertising evilness Google is famous for? Doubleclick was well known for it.
That started well before either of those events.
I suspect that with the death of Pope Steve it will slowly work itself out of the pro-Apple mentality, though certainly that event brought out all of the iFans for one last internet-wide hurrah.
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
The music industry consists of fit, attractive dancers whose voices autotune well and they won't deal with Google unless they have to, which they will because they only care about the money and fame.
FTFY.
Sony as a whole is rather large, but their music division is not that big.
The real issue is that nobody could ever buy all the major music labels and make it past the antitrust authorities.
Of course, they could just buy whichever one has the most attractive catalog and then fire most of the management and replace them with people with souls and then stop acting in lockstep with the rest of the cartel. I would love to see the reaction of the other labels if one of them suddenly started selling tracks for less than half the cartel price and giving new artists well-balanced contracts instead of bending them over. It would be like watching a corporation have a heart attack.
not a giant player who dictates terms to THEM...
Well, they wouldn't be in that position if they'd tried actually innovating over the last decade instead of running around shrieking about piracy. Instead they let another company monopolise their newest distribution channel.
If they want a strong competitor to Apple, they're going to have to play nicely with others and somehow beat Apple on prices or features, neither of which they're likely to let Google do.
They wouldn't be in that position if they'd had the wit to realize that the end of the shiny-plastic-disc era was upon them, and had worked with Shawn Fanning and Napster rather than suing them into oblivion. They had their chance to seize control of content distribution on the Internet ... and blew it. And what happens when industries miss opportunities like that is that they die. Unfortunately, like SCO, like every zombie flick ever made, these guys just keep coming back and causing even more damage because they still don't get it.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Why shouldn't Apple, Google, and Amazon get their OWN recording artists and cut out the completely and utterly useless RIAA middlemen?
While I agree with your point, keep in mind that the RIAA and the content cartel that funds them are not the same thing. The RIAA in the U.S., the CRIA in Canada, and similar front organizations worldwide are just attack dogs: lawyers paid to do what their lords and masters tell them to do. The RIAA is not a middleman: the likes of Universal, BMG, Vivendi and others are the middlemen.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Can you really tell the difference between an AAC/MP3 file encoded at 256kb/s and a FLAC file?
No, he can't. He just likes to pretend to so he'd appear to be "above " normal people.
You mean like Gmail, Maps, Search, Google Earth? Those all wore a Beta tag for years and years.
The ORIGINAL DAMN POINT was that Google used to be able to ship products that, though beta, by and large worked and they could be built upon. I used and liked ALL of the products you mentioned; though beta they worked very well and had a good feature set at launch that made them useful.
Fast-forward to the more recent years of what I can only now describe as utter clusterfuck. Wave, Google+ which (as I said) I could not use for MONTHS AFTER LAUNCH because I was stupid enough to GIVE GOOGLE MONEY.
Was anyone who paid google for anything unable to use Maps at launch? No? Huh!
You are living in the past, where sadly Google no longer is. They have lost the mojo they used to have of being able to launch a really usable beta, instead of firing crap at a wall to "see what sticks". Nothing is sticking!
I like Google, I have nothing against them. My moving away from them is because they have become inept and I have low tolerance for being screwed over as a paying customer.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley