YouTube Music Key is YouTube’s subscription music service

There have been a number of rumours about the possibility of a subscription music service from YouTube, and as it turns out those rumours were true. It’s called YouTube Music Key, and it’ll cost £10 a month, and it’ll let you watch videos and listen to music while avoiding all those pesky adverts.

But it’s not just about paying to avoid the adverts, that would make £10 rather expensive don’t you think? There are a number of extra perks to paying for the service, including a full subscription to Google Play Music (which costs £10 a month on its own anyway), access to specially curated playlists, offline playback, and the option to watch official music videos from the YouTube app.

One bonus is that if you get an invited to join the service’s beta program you’ll get yourself six months of the service absolutely free. After those six months are up you’ll also pay a discounted price of £8 a month for the service. How you sign up for the beta is currently unclear and YouTube claims that access will be given to it’s “biggest music fans first”. You can, however, sign up for updates on the service here.

Music Key is designed to compete with the likes of Spotify, and since the service is basically a Google Play Music subscription with a bunch of extras thrown in it could prove to be a formidable opponent. Heck maybe Taylor Swift will be happy to get involved.

There doesn’t seem to be a date for when the service will be open to the public, though some reports indicate that beta access will be available from today. We’ll keep you in the loop as we hear more.