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"Google is to announce details of its long-awaited music streaming service later today, as part of a battle for the cloud entertainment space with rivals Apple and Amazon. At its annual Google I/O developer&amp;#039;s conference, the search engine giant will unveil Music Beta by Google, a cloud-based music player allowing users to upload and store songs online for access on Android phones and tablet computers.  A Google spokesman said: &amp;quot;We plan to announce Music Beta by Google at our Google I/O developer conference. Please tune in to Google I/O Live on Tuesday and Wednesday for more details on all the news.&amp;quot; The announcement follows a similar &amp;#039;digital music locker&amp;#039; service launched by Amazon in March, enabling users to store up to 20Gb of music for remote access. Just like Amazon, Google has not agreed any deals with the major record labels. Music Beta will offer a platform for users to listen to their own music in the cloud, rather than enabling them to share songs with others. Speaking to the New York Times, Android&amp;#039;s director of digital content Jamie Rosenberg admitted that talks with the labels have proved complicated.  He explained: &amp;quot;A couple of major labels were not as collaborative and frankly were demanding a set of business terms that were unreasonable and did not allow us to build a product or a business on a sustainable [basis]. So we&amp;#039;re not necessarily relying on the partnerships that have proven difficult.&amp;quot; Rosenberg indicated that Music Beta is the first step in Google&amp;#039;s broader cloud strategy, and revealed that the company hopes to continue negotiating with the record labels to expand the service, potentially including a store for selling songs directly to users.  Apple is widely expected to soon launch its own cloud entertainment service, and the firm has the added advantage of existing relationships with the record labels via iTunes. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/tech/news/a318770/google-to-unveil-digital-music-service-today/>