Apple has inked with Warner music to finish its cloud music services, which is the latest newsand according to the reports. This could mean a subscription service is on the way or, at the very least, it could help the Apple cloud music service avoid the legal hassles that competitors may face.
The following news is reported by CNET and they say that this would lead to the much-talked about digital locker where users could get lifetime access to content they’ve purchased off iTunes, no matter what device they’re using. That seems to be the main thrust of the Apple cloud service, although some still believe that an all-you-can-eat music service for a monthly subscription is not off the table.
Apple cloud music player will need licenses, well, it’s interesting. As the recently-launchedAmazon Cloud Player doesn’t have any. This enables users to upload their tracks to cloud storage and stream or download this to various devices, including Android phones.
According to Amazon it doesn’t need licenses because it’s no different than a user accessing their legally-purchased content from their hard drive. A hard drive is just provided by the Amazon in the cloud, it contends.
The music labels disagree because it wants more revenues from each stream or re-download. That’s why you can’t really re-download tunes you’ve purchased from iTunes, although calling Apple will let you in some circumstances.
Apple has been a strong partner with the music industry but I think it would gladly run roughshod over it if it just wanted to do a cloud storage solution. Apple cloud music service would provide you with one-click access to streaming your tunes or filling up your iDevice with your collection.
Too soon we would see what Apples up to and don’t forget about Google, which is also working on its own competing music service.
