Business

Google to unveil online music service

SAN FRANCISCO — Google Inc. is preparing as early as Tuesday to unveil a new online music service similar to a service recently launched by Amazon.com Inc., The Wall Street Journal reported — a move that escalates the battle to create the next generation of internet businesses for storing and listening to music.

Google, like Amazon, has not sought licenses from the four major recorded-music companies, according to sources cited by the Journal late Monday, and is likely to include a system that functions much like a remote hard drive.

Amazon launched “cloud” music service in March, allowing customers to upload songs to its servers so they can access them from any computer, Android phone or Android tablet — but not from Apple iPhones and iPads.

Amazon, Google and Apple have been negotiating with record labels for months about cloud storage.