Apple secures cloud-music licences

Cnet.

Licensing agreements with major labels will allow Apple to roll-out a fully-licensed cloud-music service to rival unlicensed offerings from Amazon and Google.

Apple has reached licensing deals with Sony's music division, EMI and Warner Music, according to Bloomberg.

Unlike competing products, Apple's cloud-music service won't require users to upload online collections. Record labels are counting on cloud services to reignite sales of digital tracks, which have stagnated in recent years.

Google's Music Beta, revealed earlier this month, lets users upload their music to Google's servers and migrate their playlists and data from iTunes, states CNN.

The music player can be accessed from a Web browser as well as from an Android phone or tablet, and users can add up to 20 000 songs for free.

This follows Amazon's March roll-out of Cloud Player; which lets consumers upload their music to Amazon's servers and play them via the Web or Android device. Users are given 5GB of free storage but must pay for additional space.