According to several sources familiar with the matter, iTunes has completed work on their digital locker scheme ahead of Google’s competing service for Android.
Reuters reports:
Apple has yet to sign any new licenses for the service and major music labels are hoping to secure deals before the service is launched, three of the sources said.
Amazon claimed they didn’t need to secure special licenses for digital media storage when they launched Cloud Drive which has lead to “threats of legal action.” Apple may be playing it safe to appease the music industry and avoid a similar predicament. Google’s discussions with the labels have apparently stalled because, as one anonymous executive said, “they keep changing what they’re asking for.”
This will put Apple ahead of Google in the remote media storage market as they battle it out with Amazon’s Android music and movie cloud storage strategy. It’s finished, just need to pull the trigger. Perhaps the MobileMe outage is related to all this?
[via Reuters]
