Google is reportedly planning to open an online music store to sell songs digitally, although the company may not have many of the major record labels on board.
The New York Times' sources tell them that Google wants to open the music store in "the next several weeks" but, despite talks with EMI, Universal, Sony and Warner about licensing their artists, only EMI is "close to a deal" with Google.
Although no other deals appear to be imminent, the sources claim that talks are continuing.
Sounds awfully familiar
If you're currently experiencing a feeling of déjà vu, we're with you – it's not so long since we were hearing similar rumbles about Music by Google being lacking in the licensing department.
And those rumblings were right: Music by Google has since launched in beta in the US but it did so without licences from the labels that would sidestep the laborious music upload process.
Apple's iTunes Match, however, has the licences so it can simply mirror a user's MP3 collection online, and will go live in the US by the end of October.
Google's plans were reportedly always to sell music through the service as well as allowing users to stream their cloud-stored music collection; securing the rights to sell music would presumably also solve the uploading issue for existing collections.
From NYT
