YouTube to launch subscription music service
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Spotify, Beats Music, and Amazon Prime Music not enough for you? Rest easy, because streaming video titan YouTube is apparently entering the subscription-based music fray, according to a report from Billboard.
YouTube confirmed its impending launch of a streaming service to the music news site, claiming that its subscription service will "bring our music partners new revenue streams in addition to the hundreds of millions of dollars YouTube already generates for them each year."
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There are currently no details as to how YouTube's music service will compare to Spotify and Beats in terms of functionality and pricing. What we do know, however, is that you likely won't be listening to artists like Adele, Arctic Monkeys and Vampire Weekend at launch. The Google-owned video site is having trouble reaching royalty agreements with several independent record labels, and may even remove those artists from the main YouTube site in order to keep things consistent between its free and paid services.
YouTube is one of the leading platforms for streaming music, and according to Billboard, has paid more than $1 billion to rights holders over the past few years. A YouTube music app would bring some much-needed intuitiveness to the often cumbersome experience of browsing songs on YouTube, but it's hard to say if fans will choose this service over a raft of competitors.
YouTube would be entering a space that continues to grow, as retail giant Amazon just launched its Prime Music subscription service. However, Prime has a ways to go itself in terms of song selection and offline functionality.