Google on Wednesday is hosting its annual conference for
software developers, Google I/O, where it has previewed new music-related
initiatives in past years and it could unveil the new service then, these
people said.
Google has signed deals with Universal Music Group, Sony
Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group to give people unlimited access to
certain libraries of their songs for a fee, two of these people said.
Google already has an existing music service, which it
launched in 2011 and is part of its Google Play digital-media store for devices
powered by its Android operating system.
That service only lets people buy individual songs or
albums, while the new one from Google's Android unit offers a paid subscription
model to access whole libraries of songs.
Despite internal financial projections in 2011 that revenue
from the music-buying service would reach more than $2 billion by this year,
according to legal documents unearthed last year, some analysts say actual
revenue is a fraction of that.
It is unclear what kind of fee Google would charge for the
new service, and whether there would be ads. Google generates almost all of its
revenue from selling ads.
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