Details of YouTube’s subscription service surface

Details have surfaced on Google’s forthcoming, controversial subscription version of YouTube.

According to Android Police, the on-demand streaming service will be called YouTube Music Key and a subscription will cost $US10 per month. The service, which doesn’t sound all that dissimilar to Google’s established Google Play All Access, will allow subscribers to download songs to play offline with a focus on exclusive material, live concert footage, an audio-only interface, covers and remixes.

Reports suggest Google will rebrand its current streaming service as Google Play Music Key and subscribers will have access to both services.

The service was rumoured to launch earlier this year but news broke in April that Google prolonged the release “to the second quarter or beyond” to tweak its design.

YouTube have grappled with much apprehension from the independent label sector after it handed a licensing contract for the service to indie labels and publishers. The sector reacted to its apparent non-negotiable contract terms, which includes a most-favored-nation clause, by drawing up a Fair Digital Deals Declaration. The Declaration was spearheaded by the Worldwide Independent Network (WIN) and signed by more than 700 independent labels from 21 countries, including Australian labels like Cooking Vinyl, Future Classic, Head Records, Mushroom Group, Rubber Records, The Orchard and We are Unified.