Family Plan, Free Trial, Automatic Billing, Refunds and things you need to know about Google Play Music in South Africa

We have come a long way since the days of the cassette inserted into the Sony Walkman. However the underlying premise remains that same – we want our music to be portable so we can listen to it wherever we are.

Google has officially launched Google Play Music in South Africa which places access to over 35 million songs right from your mobile phone.

Adding to Google Play is Google Play Music which is made up of three distinct features: The Locker, Subscription and Store.

1. The Locker: This allows the user to upload up to 50 000 of your own music onto the system which means your music collection can be accessed from wherever you are on any device that can access the Google Play Music service. The system scans your personal music collection and adds any legitimately purchased tracks to your locker storage by simply finding those tracks from its catalogue. Should you have any “non legit” MP3 it will simply add those files to your collection too. Storing your personal music collection does not eat into your One Drive storage quota.
2. The Store:This option allows you to purchase individual tracks and/or entire albums which you then own.
3. The Subscription: For R49.99 per moth until end of January then R59.99 thereafter, you get access to 35 million tracks which can be streamed. You can also cache the selected tracks offline so you can listen to them when you don’t have an internet connection.

Trial or No Trial ?

If you access Google Play Music for the first time within South Africa, you will be able to access a 30 day free trial before you decide if the service is for you or not. However, if you happen to try Music in the past while you were travelling abroad where the service was previously available, the free trail does not apply. That’s the price you pay for being an early adopter geek !

Don’t Forget to Cancel

Once you sign up for the trial, you will be given your 30 days free to test the system. However, according to the Terms and Conditions that no one reads, if you do not cancel the subscription service it will automatically bill your credit card or Google Redeem Credit for the next 30 days.

Trials of Apps. Subscribing to a trial for an Android app gives you access to the subscription benefits for that app for free for a duration specified by the application developer. At the end of the trial period, you will be charged the price of the first period of the subscription and will continue to be charged until you cancel your subscription. To avoid being charged, you must cancel before the end of the trial period. Once you cancel your trial, you will immediately lose access to the relevant app and any subscription privileges.

Need a refund

If you purchased the wrong track from Music, you can ask for a refund within 7 working days of the day after that Music Product becomes available for you to download or stream. However, in order to qualify for that refund you must not download or stream that content. If you do, you no longer have the right to cancel your purchase of that Music Product (unless the Music Product is defective).

Via the Web and via the App

A cool service from Google is being able to access your music not only via the Google Play Music app on your mobile device but also via the Web. If your web browser is Chrome, you can also access Google Music Play via the Chrome Web Store:

Why purchase a track when you can subscribe ?

Considering that the price of one album is the same price as the monthly subscription it would make no sense to purchase music. However, the reason Google has made both options available is due to the fact that some artist have made their music only available on either channel i.e. only streamed or only purchased.

Multiple Accounts

In order to access Google Play Music you need to have a Google Account. If you have a multiple Google accounts in your family, currently each person who wants to use the service will require to pay the monthly subscription. However, Mark Bennet, head of Play Services for EMEA, hints that  there are mumblings about a “family plan” which is in the pipeline that will allow multiple accounts in the same family to access the music service with a single subscription fee. No more details at this stage.

Update 15 Dec 2015: On the latest update of the Android Google Music App, there seems to be a Family Plan which allows up to six family members to: Access Music across Android, iOS and the web. Each member can listen to the music using their own account at the same time as other members. It is noted that the Family plan can only be purchased on the Android device.

At the time of updating this post, I asked for the South African pricing from Google – will update when I get an answer

How to get Google Play Music ?

On your mobile device, look for the Google Folder on your Android phone – you will probably find that its been there all along. If not, head over to Google Play store and search for Google Play Music.

On your computer, head over to http://play.google.com/music