Google Launches Scan-And-Match Service

Yesterday (12/18), Google launched its free scan-and-match music locker service in the U.S., following a European launch last month.

According to Billboard, Google declined to disclose which independent labels are onboard, but copyrights have been secured from all three major labels.

The reveal of Google’s licensed service comes on the heels of both Apple and Amazon’s scan-and-match offerings, which both charge a yearly $24.99 rate for files playing at 256kbps.

Google’s service has two competitive advantages: it is free of charge and plays music at a compression rate of 320kbps, the highest among its competitors.

However, Google’s 20,000 songs is slightly less than Apple’s 25,000, and each are nearly 10 times less than Amazon’s 250,000.

“Our new music matching feature gets your songs into your online music library on Google Play much faster,” said Google Play in a post on Google Plus. “We’ll scan your collection and quickly rebuild it in the cloud – all for free. And we’ll stream your music back to you at up to 320 kbps.”

Prior to receiving copyright licenses, Google lacked the ability to mirror users’ catalogs with a central file in its cloud, so each library was independently uploaded and stored on servers for playback.

For a first-person account about migrating music libraries to digital cloud services, see MusicRow’s latest (Dec. ’12-Jan. ’13) Digital Toolbox print magazine, available here.