Google Music May Launch With Only 2 Labels This Week

Google Music may launch within the next few weeks without having reached an agreement with all four music labels.

It should be a given that Google will link its social network and music store together to some degree, as the company links allof its properties together into one gigantic Google web. But sources close to the Google Music project claim that Google+ and Google Music will seemingly be joined at the hip, no doubt taking on Facebook's relationship with North American newcomer Spotify.

Unnamed sources have told the Wall Street Journal that there's a good chance Google's music storefront will launch within the next few weeks, perhaps sometime this week, even if the company only lands licensing agreements with two of the four major record labels. That means the music-sharing "twist" revealed last week -- where Google Music users can purchase and share songs -- will only be available to songs by the two record labels that have actually signed on.

As the paper points out, launching a music store where only half of the music labels are participating is risky business. But then Google has already taken a risk by launching Google Music as a virtual music locker earlier this year after failing to land any kind of agreement. At this point, offering users the ability to purchase, store and share songs from two out of four record labels is an upgrade from the current offering -- a welcome one at that.

Last week EMI Group was reportedly on the verge of signing an agreement with Google, followed by Universal Music who was also negotiating with the search engine giant but may not come to an agreement in time for the store's launch. Two organizations representing independent record labels were also close to signing a deal. However Sony Music and Warner Music reportedly won't be ready for the launch, as the former says Google hasn't addressed its piracy concerns and the latter simply believes Google Music will be inadequate.

Google reportedly responded to Warner Music's comment by saying the new storefront will generate enough download sales revenue to make up for a lack of a subscription service. In Google's defense, Amazon offers an identical (save for the "sharing" aspect) where consumers can buy single MP3s or whole albums and store them indefinitely on Amazon's "cloud" servers. Don't hear the music labels complaining about that, do we?

Currently Google Music users can upload their purchased music to Google's servers and either stream them back to a desktop or mobile browser, or use Android's headphone-themed Music app to stream the music to a tablet or smartphone. Users can also re-download their songs to a local hard drive or SD card to listen in "offline" mode and conserve costly data usage.