The next Google Nexus phone will not be named the Nexus 6, The Michael Report has learned exclusively based on information given by sources within Google.

For every year that Google has released a Nexus phone, it usually comes with a corresponding number, officially or unofficially (for example, the Nexus 2 and 3 devices were not known as such officially (they were called Nexus S and Galaxy Nexus respectively), many Google engineers still referred to these legacy devices by their numerical release order).

But this year, the next Nexus smartphone following the release of the Nexus 5 cannotbe called the Nexus 6, or Google will risk a lawsuit – the name Nexus 6 has been copyrighted since 2000 for the release of a music album back then.

According to the sources, Google’s legal team is well aware of the copyright and therefore have asked the product team to name what was supposed to be the Nexus 6 accordingly.

On another note, two of the sources also told The Michael Report that they believe – unless a sudden change of plan takes place – that the Nexus brand will indeed die out in 2015, to be replaced with the Play Edition brand (this is in line with what Russian blogger and analyst Eldar Murtazin reported a couple of weeks ago).

Here’s what that means, basically: after Google releases the Nexus 7 smartphone (unlikely that they’re going to call it the Nexus 7 since they already have a tablet line with that name… so we’ll have to wait and see what they end up calling it), that will be the last time we ever hear of the Nexus brand from Google. However, if you still want your pure-Android fix, there’ll always be the Play Edition from Google and it’s hardware partners.

Play Edition are basically smartphones that has been released before but now sacrifices their proprietary OS skin overlay for the pure-Android OS and as a thank you gesture from Google, they’re allowed to be sold from the Google Play Store. Google gets a cut of the profits for letting the manufacturers sell their phone on the Play Store while the hardware manufacturers handle all the shipping, logistics, customer support, etc. Google profits, without having to give anything up other than letting companies use the Play Edition name. It’s a win-win.

That’s all we have for now – we’ll be reporting more on the Google Nexus line and their fate inside Google once we get more news.