Apple closes licensing deals for the launch of new music streaming service
Apple will soon launch their own music streaming service. The company has concluded licensing agreements with EMI Music, Warner Music and Sony Music Entertainment, in which the companies agree that Apple can use the record companies’ copyright protected music for their new online music streaming service. According to insiders in the music industry, Apple is also in talks with Universal Music Group about the copyrights to their music.
The new service will allow users to buy music from Apple’s online music shop iTunes and save their files wherever they like. Then the user can stream their music to an iPhone or iPad. Apple wants this online music service to compete with the recently launched streaming services of Google and Amazon.
Amazon has launched a music service some time ago, that allows users to store their music online and then play the songs on multiple devices via a server. The music does not need to be saved on an individual device or harddrive. For the Amazon Cloud Player, Amazon has no signed agreements with record companies about the use of (copyrighted) music, as far as I know. Amazon took the view that they do not broadcast, adapt or distribute the music. It is all user generated content, as users upload music they have obtained in a legal manner by creating or purchasing it themselves. Subsequently, they put it on their Cloud Player account. According to Amazon it would be an unfair duplication if one would have to require these users to pay royalties for listening (streaming) this music from their cloud-based account. Google has a similar service and also takes this view. Music Beta is currently only available in the United States. Google has no license for this music streaming service.
It seems the Internet companies argue a fundamental difference between a situation where users play music from their own harddrive or mobile device and, on the other hand, a situation where users listen to music from the "cloud". In addittion, it seems to me that there is also a distinction between users that upload their own (purchased) music onto a cloud-account and the situation where the provider of the streaming service is offering to stream songs that are not in the user's possession. The latter case seems to become more similar to broadcasting or publishing of copyrighted works by the streaming service. At this stage of the game, the record companies and Apple did not respond to this discussion, according to newswebsites Cnet and Nu.nl. To be continued.
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