Image via CrunchBase Apple Inc. is very near to make announcement declaring the launch of its online cloud music storage and streaming service. It has almost signed the deals with three out of four most major labels successfully and is soon expected to finish its deal with the fourth company as it signs the agreement in next several days.Apple Inc., the widely popular company for breaking records in selling its devices like iPhone and iPad, had finished the designing of its new service few days back from today. Many analysts have predicted that Apple will perhaps win the race with its rivals, including Google Inc and Amazon.com, to launch its complete 'cloud' music service with singed agreements from the music industry. This new iTunes cloud-based service will be offering all its users to not only buy and store their songs online, but also stream these songs from where ever they have an Internet access; regardless of the device they use.
The first company to agree with iTunes cloud deal was Warner Music Group Corp which signed almost two weeks ago, seconded by both EMI Group and Sony Music Entertainment which made the decision very recently. The fourth company in line of agreements is Vivendi SA's Universal Music Group, the largest music company in the world. The sources familiar with the discussion state that the agreement will be final "within days of putting pen to paper on the new cloud service." All this information is only provided by concealed and anonymous sources familiar with the discussions, as Apple Inc. and all the record labels keep declining to give any official statement.
Apple has been negotiating its deals to build a cloud-based iTunes service with the record labels from almost a year now. But the recent beef up of the deals indicate that Apple is hoping to make the announcement of its new cloud music at its Worldwide Developers Conference. Apple hosts WWC annually, this year scheduled on 6th June, and its co-founder Steve Jobs has made plenty announcement regarding new products and services, including the iPhone 4, at the same event. But to have its service lanced by 6th June Apple will also need to acquire agreements with song publishers. Consequently Apple has already begun negotiating with major song publishers.
The music locker services launched by its rivals, Amazon and Google, are without any licensing agreements. This leaves the companies extremely vulnerable to have a legal action from any music company.
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