Google Play Artist Hub closes on April 30 while Google does not offer more direct portal for small musicians

Last year, YouTube Music became Google's premier streaming service. The company announced that Play Music would eventually be replaced. This month, Google will close the Google Play Artist Hub that musicians use to interact directly with the Play Store.

Smaller independent artists who are not signed by labels can use the Google Play Artist Hub to manage their presence on the Play Store and download / sell songs. In an email today, Google informed these musicians that the Artist Hub was closing on April 30. YouTube Music is cited as a reason by Google:

With the launch of YouTube Music last year, we plan to eventually replace Google Play Music with YouTube Music. In anticipation of this change, we are closing the artist center.

This portal allowed smaller artists to interact directly with Google to view statistics and get paid for feeds / purchases. Musicians can still sell their content in the Play Store and have content available streaming in Play Music, but they must now register with a third-party distributor to handle the entire process.

At the end of the month, all songs and albums imported via Google Play Artist Hub will no longer appear in the Google Play Store or Google Play Music service (including paid streaming and free radio streaming service). ). "

Artists who would still like to "do [their] music available for purchase / download "must be republished, Google providing a list of" YouTube Partners ", including AWAL, Believe, Baby CD, DistroKid, Stem and TuneCore.

9to5Google's Take

In the grand scheme, this decision is part of the possible replacement – and increasingly confirmed – of Google Play Music by YouTube Music. This shows that Google no longer wants a direct relationship with Play Music brand artists. Of course, the company does not leave the field of music in general, as evidenced by the YouTube juggernaut, and its commitment to new music YouTube.

However, there are still many unknown questions about the transition:

• Will the Play Store continue to sell music or will this feature be removed from Google Play and added to YouTube Music? For Google, does it make sense to always sell MP3s in the era of streaming?
• Google has not yet established a detailed transition plan. By ignoring the well-known feature of Cloud Locker, what will happen to existing song purchases made in Google Play? Presumably, the depreciation of Play Music means that it will have to be available in YouTube Music. Will Google keep the Google Play showcase for songs, or will it simply prefer to personalize it with YouTube?

Thank you Up & # 39; to and Dylan