Google insists, over and over, that it has no intention of getting into the content business. So how is it finessing its way into the music business? Very carefully.

The search giant is working on a new service that will provide searchers with streaming music, which sounds a whole lot like a content play at first blush. But Google will only be offering limited bits of music, and it will be relying on other companies–Lala.com, MySpace’s iLike and Imeem, sources say–to actually provide the tunes.

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Well look at that: EMI Music Group, which had been working on a licensing deal with music start-up Grooveshark but ended up suing it instead, now has a licensing deal with Grooveshark after all.

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Employees at News Corp.’s MySpace have been waiting to find out who their new ad sales boss will be. And, here she is: Nada Stirratt, who until today was running digital sales for Viacom’s MTV Networks.

Stirratt has her work cut out for her. The struggling social networking site, HQed in Beverly Hills, has been trying to reboot its image, spur innovation in its product and, most of all, pull itself out of a too-long slump, even as longtime rival, Palo Alto, Calif.-based Facebook, has seen explosive growth.

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Spotify is the best music service you’ve never used. That’s because the much-hyped streaming music company is only available for Europeans and for a select few in the U.S. who have either gotten sneak peeks or hacked their way into it. The service took one step toward wider distribution today when Apple approved its iPhone app. But that won’t help U.S. users until the big music labels agree to American distribution deals.

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There are plenty of question marks surrounding Vevo, Universal Music Group’s new music video site that’s scheduled to launch later this year with a big assist from Google’s YouTube. But here’s one answer: The venture will be run by Rio Caraeff, who currently oversees UMG’s digital business.

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MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe is likely to be on his way out of the company he helped found, and News Corp., which bought the social network in 2005, has a single potential successor in mind. Sources say that person is former Facebook COO Owen Van Natta, who is currently CEO of music start-up Project Playlist. People familiar with the matter tell me that DeWolfe and News Corp., specifically new digital boss Jon Miller, are discussing a leadership change today.

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Common sense tells you that the CD is a vanishing artifact. Slightly more surprising: Music consumers–or at least, people who are willing to pay for music–are disappearing, too. So says the NPD Group, which estimates that 13 million Americans stopped buying music last year.

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YouTube, the world’s biggest video site, and Universal Music Group, the world’s biggest music label, are talking about creating a YouTube Music site. About time.

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Remember when MTV used to mean music television? Those days are long gone, but music videos thrive on YouTube. And it shouldn’t be hard to turn that into a real business worth serious money–if the labels and Google can get their act together.

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Think of how much time you spend on the Web when you’re gainfully employed. How much would that increase if you weren’t? Something to think about as you ponder data from a variety of sites reporting increased traffic in January–the same month that 600,000 Americans lost their jobs.

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Web folk have a fairly justified suspicion of anything they hear from official music industry reps these days. But this stat seems about right to me: 95 percent of all songs downloaded on the Web last year were stolen, says the industry’s international trade group.

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Four days after MySpace cut the legs out from under Project Playlist by disabling the music streaming service’s app, Facebook is following suit.

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iLike, the Web start-up that made a name for itself by becoming Facebook’s de facto music service, is looking for a buyer, according to multiple sources. I’m told that iLike is actively soliciting a list of buyers that include RealNetworks and Ticketmaster, which already owns 25 percent of the company.

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MySpace’s very, very long search for someone to run the social network’s new music site is just about over: A person familiar with the situation says the company has just about wrapped up negotiations with Courtney Holt, who heads up digital music at Viacom’s MTV.

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