Apple wants to launch its cloud music storage service and the labels aren’t going to get in its way. The NY Post reports that the Cupurtino company will pay somewhere between $25 and $50 million, in advance, to each of the four major music labels. Doing the math, that means somewhere between $100 and $200 million dollars to get the service off its feet. CEO Steve Jobs is expected to unveil the service this coming Monday at WWDC, along with a new version of iOS and Mac OS X.
One source has told the paper that the service is expected to be free at first, but Apple is considering a $25 per year charge. If that happens, Apple will take a 30 percent cut, music publishers will take 12 percent, and the remaining 58 percent will go to labels to divide among their artists.
While we don’t precisely know what features iCloud will have, many speculate that instead of having to upload your entire music collection to the cloud, like you must with Amazon Cloud Player and Google Music, Apple will employ a music matching service that makes a copy of your iTunes library onto its servers. If done properly, reports PC Mag, the service could be a way for individuals with sketchy music collections to come clean and start fresh on the cloud.
If you’d like to brush up on the competition before Apple’s iCloud launches, check out our impressions of Google Music and the Amazon Cloud Player.
