Music Ally

Tomorrow should see the formal unveiling of the Nexus One, the latest Android smartphone – differentiated by the fact that it’s Google’s brand on the handset rather than a manufacturer.

The company is holding an Android-themed event at its US headquarters, with information on the Nexus One all over the blogosphere in recent weeks in what smacked of a clever and deliberate campaign of leaks.

But here’s the really interesting thing. TechCrunch is claiming that Google has been in talks with Spotify to not only preload the latter’s Android app on the handset – but to pay the licensing fees to labels for music streamed by its users.

“Google wanted Spotify badly enough that they were willing to cover the label costs for every user of $3 – $4 per month. Spotify would add advertising on top of it, as they do with the free version in Europe, to make additional revenue.”

Spotify hasn’t even launched in the US yet, but persuading Google to foot the bill for its Android licensing costs would be a huge coup. However, TechCrunch admits that its sources claim the deal “has likely gone cold”, so perhaps won’t feature in tomorrow’s launch after all. Still, it’s not such a big leap from Spotify getting operators like 3 and Telia to bundle the cost of a premium subscription into their data tariffs, so it could still happen.

Tags: android, Google, nexus one, spotify

This entry was posted on Monday, January 4th, 2010 at 3:06 pm and is filed under Digital Music News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.