“Apple has cut a licensing deal with Universal Music Group that will enable Apple’s online music store to offer songs from the largest of the four top record companies, sources with knowledge of the talks told CNET,” Greg Sandoval reports.
“The agreement means Apple now has the rights to offer recordings from all of the major labels,” Sandoval reports. “In addition, Apple has reached agreements with some of the large music publishers, the sources said.”
Sandoval reports, “Details about the agreements are few, but here’s how the revenue from iCloud song sales will be split, according to the sources: the labels will get 58 percent, and publishers will receive 12 percent. Apple will take 30 percent. Streaming will not be available on Monday but will be offered soon, the sources said. They added that an Apple digital locker will store only music purchased at iTunes. The company is said to have plans to store songs acquired from outside iTunes sometime in the future.”
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Ben Sisario reports for The New York Times, “Unlike similar cloud music services introduced recently by Amazon and Google, which did not obtain special licenses from labels and publishers, Apple’s system would likely save customers time by instantly scanning their iTunes playlists and matching them to a master library on Apple’s own servers; with Amazon and Google’s services, users must upload each song, which can take many hours.”
Sisario reports, “In addition, Apple’s service is expected to have features like streaming songs in high-quality audio, even if the version a customer owns is lower quality.”
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