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]

Is Apple trying to block popular European streaming music service Spotify’s US launch? In addition to labels being uncertain as to Spotify’s business model, it’s ability to monetize, and the future of ad-supported music, CNET is reporting:

In meetings in Los Angeles recently, Apple executives told their music industry counterparts that they had serious doubts about whether Spotify’s business model could ever generate significant revenues or profits, according to two sources with knowledge of the discussions.

But Apple executives worried about the effects of a free music service might have on the rest of the market. They noted that it’s tough to sell something that someone else is giving away, the sources said. One industry insider said it is only logical that if Spotify were allowed to launch a free-music service here, at a time when Nielsen recently reported that the growth of digital sales has flattened out, it could eat into the businesses of proven revenue-producers like Apple and Amazon.

iTunes is operated at low-margins for Apple as a way to encourage iPod and iPhone hardware purchases, but low-margins at iTunes like sales levels is still a large amount of money and Apple hasn’t been this successful so far by leaving anything on the table.

Likewise, labels have been trying to hold Apple at bay by giving competitors like Amazon earlier access to DRM free music at much lower prices, and the entertainment industry in general has been denying them subscription TV, full participation in $0.99 TV show rentals, day-and-date movie availability, and other services consumers would probably enjoy having.

My base position is usually to suspect shenanigans on the part of the labels when these stories break, but should Apple be bearing the full brunt of these headlines this time?

[CNET via MacRumors]

Streaming music service Lala, acquired by Apple back in early December, 2009, has sent a letter to subscribers telling them they’re shutting down as of May 31, and while remaining credit will get transferred to iTunes, streaming music won’t show up in an iTunes.com any time soon.

The Lala service will be shut down on May 31st.

In appreciation of your support over the last five years, you will receive a credit in the amount of your Lala web song purchases for use on Apple’s iTunes Store. If you purchased and downloaded mp3 songs from Lala, those songs will continue to play as part of your local music library.

Remaining wallet balances and unredeemed gift cards will be converted to iTunes Store credit (or can be refunded upon request). Gift cards can be redeemed on Lala until May 31st.

Click here or visit Lala.com/support for more information, or to view Lala’s Terms of Service.

Thank you.

Lala

Rumors have persisted that Apple bought Lala for the talent, or for the lower-cost transaction system, or to take iTunes to the cloud. None of that has materialized so far, but speculation remains that Steve Jobs will drop hints of a Lala-inspired iTunes future at the All Things Digital Conference (where he’s introduced a new version of iTunes before), or at WWDC 2010 alongside the 4th generation iPhone (iPhone HD/iPhone 4G) and the final version of iPhone OS 4. If not, Apple’s traditional September iTunes and iPod event would be the next likely candidate.

That is, if music companies allow it.

MediaMemo reports that the record labels believe if iTunes users get streaming music to any and all of their devices, the labels deserve a bigger share of the revenue. (Because if I decided to play my CD in my car, in my home stereo, and in my portable while jogging, I had to pay more for that bit of plastic, right?)

While Apple could reasonably and probably legally argue the record labels are crazy and do iTunes.com anyway, it would “enrage” the labels and hurt Apple’s efforts to expand TV and other content.

Maybe they could insist Apple create an iTunes++ where they charge us $2 a song for streaming rights. Given the drop in sales following their forcing Apple to raise the price of a “hit” song from $0.99 to $1.29, it would likely be a disaster for everyone, labels, consumers, and Apple. Which means it’s probably just what they’re trying to do, right?

[Lala and MediaMemo, thanks for the tip Russell!]

GigaOm is reporting that, contrary to speculation that Steve Jobs wanted to return us to a more analog time when we bought new albums and sank back for ours drinking in every liner note and detail, iTunes LP was actually the record labels’ idea:

I’m told by an industry source who preferred to remain anonymous that iTunes LP wasn’t Apple’s idea in the first place. Rather, it’s the result of the same renegotiations between Apple and the major record labels that yielded DRM-free songs and flexible pricing early last year, a concession by Cupertino to make a gesture in favor of album sales as consumers increasingly show a preference for digital singles.

It’s further said that Apple subsidized the first batch of iTunes LPs, whose production costs were an unbelievable $60,000. The more recent release of developer tools is seen as reducing that cost, and rumors persist of an iDVD-like replacement application from Apple that would work to make iTunes LP and iTunes Extra.

Either way, enthusiasm among artists and Apple itself seems to be low, though just over double the amount of iTunes LPs are available now than were at launch. GigaOm suggests artists are also interested in the App Store as a way to provide extra content to consumers, which might split focus for iTunes LP.

In terms of pushing the format forward, it’s now supported by Apple TV (stuttering though it may be), but there’s been no sign of support for the 75 million iPhone and iPod touch devices on the market. It will be supported by the iPad, however, though Apple hasn’t been pushing iTunes LP as a selling point so far.

Have you bought an iTunes LP? Are you interested in the format going forward?

Is Apple charging the big record labels $10,000 to create iTunes LP packages for them, and outright refusing to make the service available to the indies? That’s the allegation Gizmodo brought forward, based on a conversation with one such indie, who heard it from their labels digital distribution manager, who claims to have heard it from their iTunes rep.

Enter internet brouhaha. Some sites are calling the $10,000 fee exorbitant, and the lockout of indies untenable. Other sites are pointing out how much good quality interactive web development costs, and highlighting that Apple has only rolled out 12 iTunes LP’s so far.

Here’s the thing: when Apple announced iTunes LP, despite the fact that they’re using the fairly open WebKit framework to make it, they didn’t announce the specific TuneKit implementation as an open format, they didn’t announce an SDK, and they didn’t say they were offering it to every artist immediately.

It looks to us like this is just a case of Apple being Apple. iTunes LP is an experiment, clearly near-and-dear to them from Steve Jobs on down, and they’re starting with a few, select albums and trying to provide as premium and experience as possible. That kind of development work isn’t cheap, especially when you want to keep the numbers low at first, and it also means it isn’t open to everyone. Heck, it only even works on iTunes on your Windows or Mac PC at this point!

If they’re still nailing down the format specs, creating the development tools, and getting to set to roll out versions that will work with iPods, iPhones, and mythical, still unreleased Apple TV and iTablet devices, then this makes the kind of sense that does. And we’re guessing, when the dust settles and all the above is in place, Apple will open up iTunes LP and roll the format out wide, even to indies, because it will do what Apple really intends iTunes to do — help sell Apple hardware.