CNET is reporting that Apple has finalized an agreement with EMI Music for their upcoming cloud music service, and as previously suspected, is also on the verge of hammering out deals with Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment.

Apple has signed a cloud-music licensing agreement with EMI Music and is very near to completing deals with Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment, multiple music industry sources told CNET.

This would not only let them compete with Amazon’s Cloud Drive and Google’s new Music Beta services, but could give them significant advantages, such as making any content in the iTunes catalog instantly available without requiring time consuming uploads first.

On the negative side, it could also mean users are restricted to iTunes-only content, unlike Google and Amazon which allow users to pretty much upload anything.

Apple is probably going to unveil iOS 5 at WWDC in June, and with this news it seems more and more likely they’ll be letting the world know of their streaming music plans at the event now that the deals are starting to fall into place.

How do you think this will impact Amazon and Google once Apple brings iTunes music streaming to the masses? Sound off in the comments!

[CNET]

According to Times Online, It now seems as if Sony, Warner, Universal and EMI are putting the finishing touches on their new album format, CMX, and are ready to do battle against Apple’s rumored “Cocktail” enhanced album format.

It was just last month we reported about Cocktail, which would feature new interactive booklets, sleeve notes and other features alongside music downloads in an attempt to lure consumers into making more full album purchases. Now, while it looks like “Cocktail” does exist, it seems that none of the record labels had any hand in creating it. According to this story, record labels first approached Apple 18 months ago to see if they wanted in on this new CMX format and Apple politely refused. Apple then created “Cocktail” in order to compete with Sony, Warner, Universal and EMI.

One senior record label insider said: “Apple at first told us that they were not interested, but now they have decided to do their own, in case ours catches on.

While most of us here at TiPb have no major quarrels purchasing our music digitally, there are a lot of people out there who feel when purchasing digital albums over the internet you are not getting the full album experience. Would this new format make purchasing digital albums any less painful for you? And would you rather go with Apple’s “Cocktail” or the music industry’s CMX?

On the rare occasions when I hit iTunes looking for music, I go immediately to iTunes Plus. When it comes to DRM music, I’m just not gonna do it, so if I can’t find it on iTunes Plus, I can’t find it. Trouble now is, I can’t find iTunes Plus! Used to be in the Quicklinks, but now it’s gone missing from the iTunes Canadian Store. Maybe MacRumors knows:

Forum user Doodledoo has been following it closely and found evidence of tracks from both Warner and Sony studios participating in iTunes Plus. Apple originally launched their DRM-Free iTunes Plus format with the support of only EMI but recent rumors have suggested Apple is working on winning over the other three majors studios (Warner, Sony, Universal).

Whazzat? Really? Could it be that Big Media is finally learning that treating customers to fair use for fair price is the way to go? In a word… “no”. According to Apple Insider, progress and all, the Beatles are still going to need some help:

“EMI want something we’re not prepared to give ‘em. It’s between EMI and The Beatles I think – what else is new?,” McCartney said. “Last word I got back was it’s stalled at the moment. But I really hope it will happen because I think it should.”

So are we finally on the cusp of a revolution? Is (music, at least) DRM dying? And will all of us be long gone before the Beatles show up for download as well?