Google Play Artist Hub Shutting Down April 30 With Google No Longer Offering Direct Portal For Smaller Musicians (9to5google.com)

Last year, Google announced that YouTube Music would be the company's primary streaming service that would eventually replace Play Music. We have now learned that in anticipation of this change, Google will close the Google Play Artist Hub that musicians use to directly interact with the Play Store. 9to5Google reports: Smaller, indie artists that were not signed by labels could use the Google Play Artist Hub to manage their presence on the Play Store and upload/sell songs. In an email today, Google told these musicians that the Artist Hub is shutting down on April 30th. YouTube Music is cited as the reason by Google: "With the launch of YouTube Music last year, we eventually plan to replace Google Play Music with YouTube Music. In anticipation of this change, we are shutting down the Artist Hub."

This portal allowed smaller artists to directly interact with Google to see statistics, and get paid for streams/purchases. Musicians can still sell their content in the Play Store and have content available for streaming in Play Music, but must now sign-up with a third-party distributor to handle that entire process. At the end of this month, all existing songs and albums uploaded through the Google Play Artist Hub will "no longer appear in the Google Play Store or Google Play Music service (including the paid streaming and free radio service)." Artists that would still like to "make [their] music available for purchase/download" have to republish, with Google providing a list of "YouTube partners," including AWAL, Believe, CD Baby, DistroKid, Stem, and TuneCore.

Comments

Another one bites the dust

[Matt_H]

Google seems all about shutting down services these days... with an exception for Stadia though.

Re:Another one bites the dust

[DarkRookie2]

They will close that down once it burns.

Re:Another one bites the dust

[Krishnoid]

I wonder if they hired a new hatchet-wo/man who's doing this to make their mark. Or maybe just cleaning stuff up.

Re:Another one bites the dust

[Anonymous Coward]

These days? They've always been like this. Google starts up multiple projects/services, some of which overlap others and then kill them off in short order. The only Google services that have been around for a long time are search, Gmail and YouTube (which Google bought out back in 2006).

It looks like the MAFIAA paid them off this time. Can't have independent musicians running around or they don't get the cut that they are entitled to.

Re:Another one bites the dust

[Anonymous Coward]

If only they would now allow uninstalling the related crapware from Android devices. These G+, Play and others were force pushed to devices which even did not receive security updates. And of course all these were "essential system components" which can not be uninstalled by user.

Next time Google wants to market some crap, they might re-consider, if force-pushing something to existing Android users really gets the best reaction. Of course the installation numbers shown in MBA-meetings are in billions, but number of disgruntled users may be also.

Re:Another one bites the dust

[squiggleslash]

YouTube is hardly unfriendly to independent musicians.

My guess is that this is all because YouTube is more popular as a music listening system. Why? Well, because Play Music is generally about music you've bought. A minority subscribe to the unlimited service (which competes with a million other unlimited services, including Prime Music), and, I guess, there's the "radio stations" that are free but aren't playing what you're asking for.

As if to add insult to injury, the UI isn't even good at doing what it's supposed to be best at. Want to search your music library for a particular song? There's a good chance it'll never find it, or point you at a paid for version that it won't even let you buy despite it being in your library. Play Music is one of the worst apps I've ever come across, and every reason why it's awful is something that they'd never retreat from because they put too much pride in inserting that crap into the app to begin with.

YouTube, by comparison, is "search for 'safety dance'", bam, it's there, you might have to watch an ad, but otherwise it doesn't matter if you've bought it or not. YouTube is the unlimited streaming music service that is available to everyone. And everyone's going for it.

So... Play Music is dying almost certainly because Play Music is shit, not because of any conspiracy. Any garage band can upload their music to YouTube, hell, anyone can upload anything to YouTube, with monetization as soon as your channel sees serious traffic, so arguing this is about the MAFIAA is ludicrous.

Fucking the artist over

[DarkRookie2]

That sucks for the artist. Now they must pay more for this and go on a shittier platform.

Re:Fucking the artist over

[PPH]

Who ever looked at the music industry, and thought it needed more middlemen?

The middlemen.

Lots of innovators with alternative platforms have probably been waking up with horses heads in their bed.

Re: Fucking the artist over

[ArmoredDragon]

They just gave a warning.

Re: Fucking the artist over

[Calydor]

"Your entire livelihood ends in less than a month unless you agree to an effective pay cut by letting a middleman take a percentage of all revenue."

Some warning. It's right up there with, "What a nice shop you have here. Would be a shame if something happened to it."

Re: Fucking the artist over

[Calydor]

This isn't about One Direction and Justin Bieber, though.

Re:Fucking the artist over

[sg_oneill]

Ehh.... its not the end of the world. Most of the other platforms work this way, so Artists generally sign up with a service like CD Baby which handles all that for a one off fee of , like $50 or whatever for all platforms. So most independent artists would already have an account with a third party provider to get their stuff on iTunes, amazon, etc. For most indy musicians they won't even notice this one.

And that minoritywho are affected , probably didn't actually realise there was services that could get them on iTunes, amazon, etc.

Re:big business wins again

[DigitalSorceress]

I think you're likely right.

That's a nice music sales system you have there.. it'd be a real shame if someone were to deny you rights to sell all A-List artists.... you know, unless you just kind of drop this whole artist portal....

I miss mp3.com

[rsilvergun]

as it was right after it stopped hosting what was basically pirated content and was a place bands put their stuff to get noticed. I think the real reason the RIAA shut it down so hard is that a bunch of bands were making a good living off it. Can't have bands being independent of labels, now can we?

The big plattforms are killing the Internet

[quax]

Time to break them up.

Re:The big plattforms are killing the Internet

[quax]

It would need to be inflation adjusted, but I think the principle is sound.

Re:The big plattforms are killing the Internet

[quax]

The EU has never been shy of taking on monopolies.

i only want music

[sad_]

so is youtube-music only going to be video? will i be able to turn off video? i want to LISTEN to music, not watch it.
google music had the option to use your own music library, i guess that option is also not available anymore with youtube-music?

Phew

[nospam007]

I‘m glad that I am 6 foot 2 then and not a small artist.