BB sources on Google Music initiative

HINTS EMERGE ABOUT GOOGLE MUSIC’S SHAPE: Google is circulating a proposal among the Big Four indicating that the company’s music service will include an a la carte digital download store and a cloud-based locker at around $25 a year, industry sources told the bible’s Ed Christman. That’s big news. In the story, Ed erroneously credits Google with buying streaming service Lala last December, when the purchaser was actually Apple. But hey, we make bigger slip-ups than that every day. Moving right along, he reveals that Google locker subscribers would have the additional option of having their purchases transferred directly to their cloud-based account. And the company is seeking the right to provide each customer with the ability to listen to a full-track stream of every song once—which was Lala’s big hook and primary value. The locker would also have social networking features, such as allowing users to send playlists to fellow subscribers, allowing one listen to each song in its entirety, a la Lala, via a web-based music player and a mobile app for playback of tracks from the cloud-based locker. Google is looking for initial three-year licensing deals from the labels for each territory. (9/15a)