Google Play Music has just gone live in Australia. The link is now showing up in both the Google Play Web Interface as well as the Google Play app on Android – although not in the new Google Play app that was released overnight. The service which is available already in the US and Europe allows users to store up to 20,000 songs in a music locker in the Google Cloud.
Google Music also allows bands and artists not signed to a record label to sign up to Google Play artist hub — a platform for independent artists to sell their music directly to fans. In the artist hub, artists can create a profile, upload their music files, suggest a retail price, and sell their music on Google Play. There is a $25 cost to artists to do this which is the equivalant of the fee charged to developers wanting to upload apps to Google Play.
Google Music is available on your desktop via the Google Music site where you can download a client to begin uploading your existing music library to the cloud and for your Android device you’ll need to download the Google Play Music app from Google Play.
There is no information in the Google Australia Blog regarding song matching which allows Google to add music to your music locker based on a search of your locally stored music library without the need to upload the files.
Head over to the Google Play store on your desktop or Android device to check out what music is available.
