YouTube ready to compete in the streaming music market

The Google-owned company will launch a paid music service in the coming weeks, which will compete with Spotify, Deezer or Apple's Beats Music.

YouTube, Google's online video service, will launch in a few weeks a new on-demand music service that will allow users to listen to music and watch videos without advertising. In addition, you can save music to listen to without being connected to the Internet. These streaming services, which would be paid, could bring the company around 500 million dollars, a more than significant figure if we take into account that the global recorded music market moves around 15,000 million.

The launch of this subscription service will likely change the relationship between YouTube and the music industry. The traditional free video platform was always seen primarily as a way to promote artists, and not a profitable proposition in itself.
YouTube had already signed agreements with the three major record labels: Universal, Sony and Warner. But the launch of a service with a complete music catalog has led YouTube to close an agreement with Merlin, which represents 20,000 independent labels and is considered the “fourth largest record label.”

This agreement is the result of a long negotiation that for months has served to tighten the rope between the recording industry and YouTube, with the platform even threatening to withdraw the videos of independent record companies that refused to sign their new contract.

Since it was acquired by Google in 2006, YouTube has paid more than $1 billion to the music industry through licenses that allow rights holders to keep a portion of its advertising revenue.