Google Music Goes Live With Google+ Integration 240
angry tapir writes "Google Music, the company's cloud-based online music service, is now available to all users in the US and includes song and album sales, as well as an integration with the Google+ social networking site. Introduced in test form and by invitation only in May as a cloud-based song storage and playback service, Google Music will also let users buy albums and songs from all major music labels, except Warner."
US Only :-( (Score:5, Insightful)
*Sigh*. Yet another fantastic music service not available in my country.
Re:Just what market needed... (Score:2, Insightful)
Spotify doesnt have everything i have in my collection. Spotify also requires software be installed, gmusic is browser based which makes it more workplace friendly for me.
Re:US Only :-( (Score:4, Insightful)
It's almost as if Google is a U.S. company or something.
What about the rest of us?
Re:Just what market needed... (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Still US only (Score:2, Insightful)
Only in the U.S. (Score:5, Insightful)
Last I checked, pirating music was way easier than buying it legitimately and no one cares which country you are in. Could the music industry, just perhaps, stop being a joke?
Re:US Only :-( (Score:0, Insightful)
That's because we rock....literally.
Re:US Only :-( (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't feel so bad when it comes to Canada it'll be stalled by beurocracy and the telcos then they'll cry that its unfair to them since its a foreign company moving in. Then they'll just drop the data caps for intternet packages even lower.
Re:Fucked again (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't know what Google Music is charging. The point is that buying from iTunes in America is apparently much cheaper than buying from iTunes in Australia (even when our dollar is stronger). This is because there is absolutely no competition here in the downloadable music space. They only have to set their prices to compete with domestic CD retailers.
Re:Just what market needed... (Score:3, Insightful)
As long as your music collection is really small
You can fill your Google Music with 20,000 tracks. That is not "really small" by 99.999 percent of people's definition. I don't think that will be a problem. People on Slashdot trolling? That's still a problem.
Re:Just what market needed... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why are you so against this? It seems like the logical conclusion of my data being every I want it to be without me having to worry about it.
Because:
a) there's an army of barbarian lawyers at the gates screaming that it's not my data;
b) the logical conclusion of my data being where I want it to be doesn't need to include Google or anyone else having a copy of my data: while that's a possible conclusion, it's not the only possible conclusion, but rather one that guarantees a loss of privacy;
c) it's linked to all of Google's other information about me, and this is being compiled at a time when Google is expressly attempting to build identity verification into their services.
Re:Only in the U.S. (Score:2, Insightful)
Last I checked, pirating music was way easier than buying it legitimately and no one cares which country you are in. Could the music industry, just perhaps, stop being a joke?
Don't worry, you're doing your level best to put them out of business. Hard to be a joke when you're out on the streets. FYI, the big bad old "music industry" is actually made up of a tiny handful of rich fatcats and an enormous number of passionate amateur musicians in their early 20s who wanted a job that got them closer to their passion in any way possible. Forget about the guys at the top...it's the hordes of young adults with stars in their eyes who suffer most from piracy.
Of course, no-one on Slashdot will ever see or believe this. Just like pirating music is easy, so is self delusion.
Re:Just what market needed... (Score:4, Insightful)
I mostly have FLAC music, and transcoding every time I sync to my phone is a pain. Figuring 500MB per album, I can only fit so and so much on a 32GB memory card (about 16GB of which is filled with other junk anyway)... and then when the mood strikes, the album I'd like to listen to usually isn't on my SD card. Google Music or Subsonic are great for those situations...
Re:Only in the U.S. (Score:5, Insightful)
Forget about the guys at the top...it's the hordes of young adults with stars in their eyes who suffer most from piracy.
That's like saying the people who suffer the most from abolishing sweatshops are the sweatshop workers. It's also a load of crap.
Do they have lossless formats? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Just what market needed... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, just like those silly paranoid students that thought their universities might release their personal info in response to RIAA/MPAA demands -- oh wait...
Seriously, consider it this way:
1. Google wants people's real-life name, cellphone number, in some cases they've demanded a driver's license or state ID; they freely hand over information when any government agency in the US (and many other countries) requests
2. The RIAA has a reputation for going overboard in identifying, harassing & prosecuting anyone that may have downloaded illicit copies of songs, not particularly caring that they've repeatedly been caught targeting obviously innocent people
3. Our government currently favors the "rights" or well-being of corporations far more than citizens (innocent or not)
So when Google offers to host personal libraries bound to hold plenty of files (some of which are illegally downloaded or could only be obtained by illegally circumventing DRM), you figure the RIAA won't take advantage of it, Google won't hand the named member's personal info over, and the government won't play along? You should revise your signature, most people with a real cognitive impairment would know better...
Re:Just what market needed... (Score:2, Insightful)
itunes (yuk!)
He accused Slashdot of hating on Google, while obliviously hating on Apple.