Google Play Family Library now available

[Becky]

Google has announced that you can now share purchases made on Google Play with up to five other family members, using 'Google Play Family Library'. The new service is being rolled out over the next few days, and will initially only be available in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States.

In the old days, people would buy books and then share them with family members when they were done reading them. Or we’d get a movie or CD and get everyone in the same room to watch together. Those days aren’t over but — these days — it’s pretty common for family members to experience media on personal devices on their own and place.

Google wants to enable that with its new Family Library that lets up to six family members share media purchased via the Google Play store for mobile devices, PCs and Macs and connected TVs such as those with Internet access or attached devices like Roku or Apple TV.

Read more at Forbes and Android Police.

 

[Ian]

I'm glad they've done this, it seems silly to restrict digital content to one user/device in some contexts. Per household licensing may make more sense for things like e-books via Kindle, Netflix, etc... They're already used like that, so I suppose it's inevitable to improve multiple user access.