Apple is far along in negotiations to obtain international cloud-music licenses from record companies and publishers and may secure a deal in time to announce it at the company’s iPhone event on Oct. 4. CNet’s Greg Sandoval reports that Apple is looking to obtain similar licenses to the ones it obtained for iCloud, the company’s upcoming cloud services initiative and Apple is said to be close to reaching deals. iCloud and iTunes Match will give customers the ability to download songs multiple times from any authorized device and stream an digital library on the go and iCloud will be free with limited storage, iTunes Match will cost $24.99/year and offer a customer’s music library for cloud streaming…………………
Managers at iTunes are trying to lock down worldwide cloud-music rights, CNET has learned and sources familiar with the discussions between Apple, record companies, and music publishers, say Apple is seeking international music licenses for its iCloud service. The licenses would be similar to those the company has already obtained for U.S. operations and if iTunes managers wrap up negotiations in time, they could announce the offering at a Tuesday press event at Apple headquarters, where the company is expected to roll out the iPhone 5, the next generation of the iconic smartphone. The sources said Apple is close to reaching deals with rights holders but nothing is signed and an Apple representative declined to comment. In June, Apple’s then-CEO Steve Jobs announced an online cloud storage service called iCloud that’s designed to make it simple to wirelessly share music, e-mail, photos, calendars, and other data between handheld gadgets and desktop computers. The new Apple service attempts to harness the power and flexibility of cloud computing for home users. It uses techniques that have already proved popular with businesses to make it easier to move data stored on Apple‘s servers back and forth between multiple devices and applications. Apple said that only music bought from iTunes can be transferred to the cloud and shared with other devices and iTunes Match, which allows users to store their entire collection, including music ripped from CDs on iCloud servers for $24.99 a year. Some of the countries that could receive access to iCloud include Germany, France, and the United Kingdom.
[ttjad keyword=”ipad”]
