Google A battle of the bands is coming — a battle to sell bands online, that is.
Citing anonymous sources, Billboard magazine reported fresh details on Google’s long-awaited music store, which will offer a la carte digital downloads and an online-only storage system — a music locker consumers can rent for $25 per year.
The details came from a proposal the search giant is reportedly passing around to music industry heavyweights, part of Google’s efforts to have the music store up and running by Christmas.
The music marketplace will be akin to that of iTunes and Amazon, Billboard reported , where users can pay per song. The big difference lies in the storage: For $25 a year, users can also subscribe to a digital locker where they can stream or download their libraries from anywhere as long as there’s an Internet connection.
One of the key features: the option to automatically upload personal music libraries to the online storage site — which may be hard for record labels to swallow, given the possibility that stolen or pirated tracks would be uploaded along with legitimate ones.
Google’s suggested revenue sharing plan probably won’t go over well either, Billboard noted.