14 DAY TRIAL // Things may not be going as well or as fast as it may have hoped, but Google is still working on creating a music service to compete with the big players, Apple, Amazon. The latest rumors say that Google is once again negotiating with music labels, this time to open up an MP3 store, likely to connect it to its Music by Google offer.
Google is said to be talking with all four major labels and negotiations are in various states of completeness.
There is a sense that Google is trying to launch the MP3 store before Apple rolls out its iTunes Match service, which is expected to land before the month's end.
It remains to be seen whether Google can pull it off, since negotiations with the music labels have been known to be tricky and, well, long.
And there's no better example of that than Google, which had been in talks for many months before deciding to go at it alone and launch its 'Music Beta by Google' service this spring, without any licensing.
At the time, it had been working on a deal that would enable it to stream music online, but it couldn't come to terms with the labels so it ended up launching a rather limited and unimpressive cloud music locker service instead, after negotiations broke down.
This time around, it wants an MP3 store, a more classical type deal, ever since Apple pulled it off back in 2003. But this being Google, things are complicated.
The labels would be more than happy to have another big competitor in the digital music space, which is dominated by Apple and where Amazon is the second player and the only other one that counts, in the US.
But labels want more than just money from Google, they want it to do more to 'stop' piracy and they have been banking on this for ages. Google has already relented on some occasions and has started censoring search suggestions, but the labels think it's not enough.