Google Plans To Launch iTunes Competitor By December

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Techcrunch.com reports that Google plans to launch Google Music, a music service designed to compete with Apple's iTunes, as early as December 2010. Google Music is planned as a digital music download store that works in tandem with a cloud-based song locker service to allow music to be accessed and streamed anywhere. The only problem with this plan is that Google has not managed to secure a single deal to help launch the service.

Google's Vice President of Engineering Andy Rubin has been heading up the negotiations with the major music labels, but thus far nothing has come of it. Each major label has a different set of goals and ideas about how streaming music should be implemented. All the labels must be able to come to some kind of agreement if Google is to launch the Google Music service.

To aid in the negotiations, Google has hired veteran music attorney Elizabeth Moody. Moody has had a great deal of experience in this field given her time at the Davis, Shapiro, Lewit & Hayes firm. The firm has represented clients such as Spotify, MySpace Music, iMeem, MOG, iLike, and Bebo. Clearly, Moody is a great asset for Google to add to this process.

Google could perhaps be the first worthy competitor to stand up against iTunes. A monopoly is never a good thing and iTunes definitely has one in terms of digital distribution of music. Google is a company that is large enough and has a far enough reach that it could compete with Apple. The company even has its own phone - the Android - to tie the service in with. The only source of worry perhaps is that Google does not have a track record of selling product. This music service would be their first attempt at such a thing.

Google has a lot of hurdles to overcome if they plan to launch the service by December 2010, just in time for the launch of Android 3.0, which is expected in the fourth quarter of this year.

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