An internal battle appears to be taking place at Google over the nature of its long-planned music service. Multiple sources tell Music Ally that Google may ditch the more ambitious elements of its service – those that require licences from rightsholders, to be specific – in favour of following in Amazon’s footsteps and launching a pure cloud locker offering. Our sources suggest that any such move will be partly down to simmering frustration within Google at the protracted nature of its negotiations with rightsholders, but also due to a widening divide between Google’s music licensing team and the more engineering-led execs who are currently resurgent within the company, following the reappointment of co-founder Larry Page as CEO. A decision to jettison the licensed aspects of Google Music would be a blow for rightsholders, who remain eager for some genuine competition for Apple in the digital music market. Update: as we were finalising this story for the Bulletin, industry blogger Wayne Rosso published a blog post along similar lines, suggesting Google execs are “just about at the end of their rope with the major label licensing process”. Source: Music Ally sources Source: The Music Void
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