YouTube Licensing Deal with Indie Music Record Labels is Finally Here

You may have heard about the riff between YouTube and select indie music record labels about reaching a licensing deal.  Well, the time has finally come and a deal is on the table.  YouTube is moving forward with a subscription music service.  According to the Financial Times, they made agreements with Sony, Warner, and Universal, but they just couldn’t make progress with Merlin (the smaller labels’ rights agency)… until now.

Although both Merlin and YouTube are being tight lipped about the specifics, YouTube is positioned to compete directly with Pandora and Spotify.  The New York Times reports that YouTube would primarily be free, but paying subscribers will have access to more music.

The ad-free streaming service will reportedly be called “Music Key” and here are some of the key features:

• Enjoy music without ads
• Take your  music offline so you can play it anywhere
• Keep music playing in the background.

The service is scheduled to launch on Monday November 17th in beta-test mode for limited users and the service will officially launch in 2015 for a subscription rate of $10/month.