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Google is providing two new perks for Google Music users, including the ability to shuttle their tracks from the music locker and share YouTube videos.
Users have been able to upload up to 20,000 songs to the Google Music locker and play them on their Android smartphone or tablet since the full, non-beta service launched last November.
However, once the music was there, that’s it. Users could simply stream tracks. Until today–now users have another way to back up their music.
Going forward, users can download all songs from Google Music, including songs they uploaded themselves to those purchased in the Music store (up to two downloads per song for Music store tunes). Downloads will be formatted as MP3 files at 320k bps.
Google provided instructions for downloading Music store cuts and their uploaded tracks from its cloud.
The other cool feature is the ability to share YouTube videos along with songs users uploaded and chose to share with their Circles on Google+.
Just click the dropdown menu next to the song title to share the video, which will look like this:
It’s not clear how many Google users are using Google Music, but I’ve uploaded a few free albums and shared some tracks from them via Google+.
The problem is that anything I wish to listen to I can stream right from YouTube. I often do so right from Google+ as a matter of fact. So it seems like a waste of money for me to buy versions of songs I can listen to whenever I want.
Of course, anti-piracy advocates are appalled, but most of the rightholders are simply combating copyrighted videos on YouTube, not studio cuts of songs. Like Billy Joel says, Don’t ask me why: