Google launches YouTube Music Key

Details of Google’s controversial subscription version of YouTube have been drip-fed to media since its announcement in April. Now the search giant has officially launched YouTube Music Key today along with a rebuild of its system.

While it won’t officially go public for another six or so months, YouTube Music Key will be invite-only from next week and will be available for free for six months, after which Google will charge US$7.99 per month for a promotional period and in 2015, will cost the oft-used price of US$9.99 a month.

As previously reported, Google subscribers will have access to YouTube Music Key once it gets its broad release.

Not unlike its streaming competitors, YouTube Music Key operates in two ways: as a free, ad-supported video and audio streaming service for desktop and mobile, and as an ad-free paid subscription service that allows offline listening, and the ability to stream music from YouTube whilst using other mobile applications like email or text.

The subscription strategy has created some confusion, with tech websites questioning how music will now be defined considering the large influx of cover versions being uploaded to YouTube, but as YouTube spokesperson Matt McLernon told Techcrunch the onus will eventually be partly on the uploader.

“We want it to be from both sides – we rely on the information the uploader puts in their YouTube video, but we also want to be an active part in that,” McLernon said. “This is the same concept of what we use to determine recommended or related videos. All the different signals that we’re aware of that would tell us people are playing these videos in the same way that they would play these types of music videos.”

Later this week, Google will push out an update to the YouTube app on Android and iOS.

Google’s subscription service follows the announcement of YouTube’s deal with global independent rights agency Merlin. Until now, YouTube had 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.

In many ways YouTube is responsible for launching the careers of some of the globe’s most popular acts; 5 Seconds Of Summer follow a long line of artists who used the service as a launch-pad into ubiquity, including Justin Bieber, Psy, Bauuer, Charice Pempengco and Susan Boyle.