Two Down, Two To Go: Apple Lines Up Another Record Company For Its Cloud-Music System
May 19, 2011
Apple has signed a cloud-music agreement with EMI Music, according to an exclusive report by CNet. In addition, Apple is said to be close to completing deals with Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment.
The agreement with EMI Music is Apple’s second; in April, Warner Music became the first of the big four labels to sign with Apple for its rumored music-in-a-cloud system.
Apple is expected to announce its answer to recent music cloud services announced by Amazon and Google next month. However, unlike the programs offered by others, Apple’s cloud system will come without licensing restrictions.
According to CNet, this means Apple can provide a “scan and match” service to its customers.
They state:
One example is that instead of requiring users to spend hours uploading their songs to the company's servers, as Google and Amazon do, Apple could just scan a user's hard drives to see what songs they own and then provide them almost-instant streaming access to master recordings. The process is sometimes referred to as "scan and match." The music service Lala, which Apple acquired in December 2009, made this process famous.We’ll know soon enough what Apple has up its sleeve, since the company’s cloud system should be announced at next month’s WWDC in San Francisco, California. The conference begins June 6. What do you think? Leave your comments below. [Original Photo: http://yolylarkin.co.uk/year1.html]
