Google’s Digital Music Service Falls Short of Ambition - NYTimes.com

Sort of like iTunes, but without the music content…  Perhaps Amazon or Google will acquire Rhapsody, for its music publisher relationships

But the service that the company unveiled on Tuesday, called Music Beta by Google, fell short of those ambitions. There is no store, the streaming function comes with restrictions, and, like Amazon’s Cloud Drive service announced in March, using it requires a long upload process.

What came between Google and its ambitions was an obstacle familiar to many digital music start-ups: despite months of negotiations, the company could not obtain licenses from the major record companies.

Google’s Digital Music Service Falls Short of Ambition - NYTimes.com