YouTube has unveiled plans for the launch of its paid music streaming service, YouTube Music which will be available to subscribers on May 22nd. YouTube is also overhauling it's present ad-free premium service YouTube Red by renaming it Youtube Premium and hiking the subscription price by $2. YouTube Music subscriptions will be available for $9.99 per month and YouTube Premium (which will include all of YouTube Music's offerings) will cost $11.99 (up from YouTube Red's $9.99). This move may be YouTube's way of addressing concerns of the global music industry who claim that YouTube's massive listener base does not translate into fair payouts for artists. Two years ago YouTube had launched a premium service called YouTube Red that offered an ad-free viewing experience and a selection of original programming available exclusively to subscribers. The $9.99 YouTube Red plan came bundled with a music streaming subscription also through Google Play Music (Google Play Music could be independently subscribed to for the same price of $9.99 which made YouTube Red a better deal). So what we are seeing here is a hike of $2 for access to ad-free YouTube, music streaming and original programming. No announcement has been made regarding the launch of either of these tiers of subscription for Indian users. In India, Google Play Music is offered at a much cheaper Rs 89 per month subscription, in line with other players like Apple Music (Rs 120) and Gaana (Rs 99). But Recode is reporting that Youtube Music will eventually also…
