14 DAY TRIAL // While Google isn't, except for the fact that it's holding a music-related event next week, it is pretty clear that it is launching a MP3 music download store. It's going to be a rather run-of-the-mill store, with a somewhat interesting twist, any song you buy you can share with friends, via Google+, Google has said.
Those friends will be able to listen to it once for free. It's not much, but it's something differentiating Google from the iTunes store or the Amazon MP3 Store.
Unfortunately, there's going to be one more thing differentiating Google's music store, it's probably going to have only half the music both iTunes and the Amazon MP3 Store are offering.
That's because Google still hasn't signed a deal with Sony Music Entertainment nor Warner Music Group. It does have Universal Music Group and EMI lined up, but the other two haven't agreed to the terms yet and it's unlikely any deal will get done before the music store launches.
Of course, the launch itself may be part of the negotiating process, putting pressure on the labels to sign, but it may backfire for Google since, if there's one thing music labels have shown, is that they're perfectly fine sabotaging their own business unless they get the terms they want.
And those terms, regularly, revolve around rather outrageous licensing fees or, in Google's case, the fight against 'piracy.'
The only reason why Google does not have a music store right now, the only reason why it does not have a licensed music cloud locker is that the labels have always wanted more than just money from Google, they wanted to it be their online copyright bully, something Google has been somewhat reluctant to become.
So the labels are more than willing, even now as EMI gets chopped up by Sony and Universal, to forgo any money they may get from Google and to continue to leave Apple as the dominating player in the digital music selling business, until they can get more people to fight the Don Quixote windmills of online piracy.
That leaves Google in a rather awkward position, one it's been in before. It wants to launch a music store, it's been working on it for years, and it wants it done. It wants it done so much that it's willing to go ahead and launch it with only half the labels.
It believes that it can strongarm the labels into joining its music store, by launching it with or without them, but that strategy would work only if the labels cared about the money most of all. Unfortunately for all involved, and contrary to what they themselves believe, the music labels care more about the piracy witch hunt than actual revenue.