Apple has reached an agreement with Warner Music Group to offer the record label's tracks on iTunes' upcoming cloud-music service, music industry sources said.
In the race to the cloud, Apple is apparently stepping on the gas. All Things Digital reported Thursday that Apple has signed two of the top four record companies and wrote that Apple content chief Eddy Cue was due to be in New York on Friday to try and finalize agreements with the two still unsigned labels.
It's unclear whether Warner was one of the two record companies that had previously licensed Apple or whether the New York-based label inked an agreement on Friday. A Warner Music spokesperson declined to comment. An Apple representative was not immediately available.
Warner Music is the third-largest of the top four labels and home to such acts as Linkin Park, Flo Rida and Green Day. The other record companies are Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and EMI Music. At the same time that Apple makes the rounds at the labels, Google has grown frustrated and has told the labels that it's exploring the option of breaking into cloud music by striking partnerships with existing services, including Spotify, say sources with knowledge of the talks.
What's in the cloud?
There's a lot of news leaking out about the land grab going on for cloud music, so maybe we revisit what all the fuss is about. First, cloud music is supposed bring back riches to the record labels, stimulate music sales for iTunes and other Web music stores, and supply fans with added convenience.
The term "the cloud" describes third-party computing. Apple and Google have each talked to the large record labels about creating cloud services that would enable users to store their existing music libraries on the companies' servers. Consumers could then access their songs from anywhere they could connect to the Web. This makes it possible to offer users lifetime rights to songs. They wouldn't have to worry about an inoperable CD or a malfunctioning hard drive. Their libraries would live forever in the cloud.
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