Google is reportedly negotiations with the major record labels to expand that service and open an MP3 store that would compete with Apple and Amazon. Citing numerous music executives, The New York Times today reported that Google might open the store in the next several weeks. It would most likely be connected to Google's existing cloud service, Music Beta, which lets people back up their songs on remote servers and stream them to mobile phones and other devices, the paper reported.

Google may announce its store before Apple opens its latest cloud music program, iTunes Match, which was unveiled in June and is expected to be operational by the end of October.

Apple got licenses for iTunes Match, which will instantly link a user's songs to Apple's master collection.

Google needs special licenses from the music copyright holders. Having failed to get licenses from the labels and publishers, Google opened a scaled-down version of Music Beta in May. Music Beta was announced five weeks after Amazon opened a similar unlicensed service, Cloud Drive.