Fantastic. But I'm guessing the problem with this will be that that Google is Google and they won't give artists the extra support that they need like the labels do. Sure, the technology gets you the distribution, but you first need to have something to distribute.

Music artists need all kinds of support: Marketing help, design help, someone technical to upload and produce their stuff. If they can provide some of that support then maybe this will have a better chance.

Why is that "fantastic" considering everyone could get into iTunes roughly on the same terms for years? And various independent music stores too. Where's the innovation?

And there are a lot of countries where neither iTunes or Google Play are available, and maybe aren't going to in observable future.

Fantastic because just about anything is better than the record labels right now.

Just because Apple already did it doesn't mean there isn't room for something else.

Because to get on iTunes you have to sign up with apple and jump through all their hoops. Given that, this is actually a big, welcome change. It means that artists can keep all of the proceeds, instead of having to cut a deal with tunecore or any of the other iTunes aggregators.

Why so? There are companies who'll jump hoops for you - for a fixed one-time payment.

Exactly what Google is up to.

Have you noticed the problem: there's already something like ten places every artist wants to be: google play, itunes, magnatune, etc, etc.

Then there is this problem when you want some music and you have to figure out who carries it first.

An opportunity for aggregators?

There's already a few big players in this space: cdbaby and tunecore.

There's also normally a bunch of indie aggregators. In New Zealand we have dunedinmusic.com and amplifer.co.nz to name but two.

Most of these exist because apple and amazon won't let just anyone set up and sell on their stores.

Give everybody a website & fool them into believing their sales will increase. First it was for small businesses now music. Is that all that google tries to do? Play catch up with facebook, itunes, iphones..etc etc.. (facepalm)

& this was downvoted because I don't necessarily agree or appreciate the topic?