PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Songwriting Google Play Artist Hub Artist shutdown

Got this in my email,

Google Play Artist Hub Artist,
Thank you for using the Google Play Artist Hub. We hope that the Artist Hub, Google Play Store and Google Play Music have substantially contributed to your music career.
With the launch of YouTube Music last year, we eventually plan to replace Google Play Music with YouTube Music. In anticipation of this change, we are shutting down the Artist Hub. The Artist Hub shutdown will commence on 30 April 2019. Please note these key dates:
• As of 30 April 2019

Your content (e.g. tracks, albums, images, bios) will no longer appear in the Google Play Store or Google Play Music service (including the paid streaming and free radio service).
You cannot upload or add new content.
You cannot edit or remove existing content. See instructions below if you'd like a copy of your artist image and/or bio before then.
• By 31 May 2019
You will receive your final reports and payments (for all sales and streaming activities, if any) up to 30 April 2019.
• As of 31 July 2019
Your reports will be deleted from the Artist Hub. Please download any reports that you want before then.
We encourage you to become a YouTube Artist if you aren't already – please visit YouTube for Artists for great resources to get you started.
If you would like to make your music available for purchase/download, we recommend one of these YouTube partners:
• AWAL
• Believe
• CD Baby
• DistroKid
• Stem
• TuneCore
Thank you for helping to make the Google Play Artist Hub, Google Play Store and Google Play Music a success. If you have any questions about this shutdown, please email artist-support@google.com.
Sincerely,
The Google Play Music Team
To get a copy of your artist image and bio:
1. On the 'ARTIST & MUSIC' page, click 'EDIT ARTIST INFO'.
2. Click '1. ARTIST IMAGE'
3. Right-click the version(s) of the image that you want, click 'Save Image As…', and follow the prompts to save the image.
4. Click '2. ARTIST BIO'
5. Copy the content in the ARTIST BIO text box and paste into your document of choice.
© 2019 Google LLC 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043
You have received this mandatory email service announcement to update you about important changes to your Google Play Music product or account.

Thanks for sharing! I received an email last month that they were dumping Google+, their version of Facebook. They do not appear to be wasting time on removing products that aren't profitable to them.

Crazy, I had no idea they would be closing that down as well. It makes sense though when I think about the fact that Google owns YouTube.

Well,if SoundCloud ever goes out of business; a lot of people are going to have to rethink their music strategy....

Reverbnation is a good place to post music, I like it better than soundcloud myself.

Their are multiple online websites to place your music. In addition to +++ SoundCloud +++ and +++ Reverbnation +++ already mentioned there is +++ Bandcamp +++ or +++ AmpSlam +++. +++ DittoMusic.com +++ offers free and paid hosting. +++ Wix.com +++ also offers free and fee based services that let you "build your own website" from scratch or using templates. Wix has multiple website templates suitable for musicians, songwriters and studios.

Another choice is to use free, online storage services like +++ Box +++, +++ DropBox +++ or +++ 4Shared +++ to store your files. Each site has a media player that will play a music file. The downside is you have to provide a link to the file(s).

All that aside, it is frustrating and sad whenever a music sharing service is closed.

Somehow, I missed that the Artist Hub even existed in the first place

Just make sure you always keep and back up local copies of your work, the MySpace data loss (whether or not it really happened) is a good reminder of that. I think that in general people consistently underestimate how quickly the internet changes. I read an article just recently lamenting that much of the early internet is already lost ... by early they meant mid-2000's! The example used was the Million Dollar Homepage (2005), which is almost entirely dead links now.