San Francisco – Apple (NASD: AAPL) has signed a licensing deal with major record label EMI for its forthcoming cloud-based music service, and is close to deals with Universal Music and Sony (NYSE: SNE) Music, CNET News.com reported, citing multiple music industry sources.
The company reportedly signed a licensing deal with Warner Music (NYSE: WMG) last month, and CNET’s sources say the deal with Sony and Universal could be “wrapped up as early as next week.”
Digital music space rivals Amazon.com (NASD: AMZN) and Google (NASD: GOOG) both recently launched their own cloud-based music services, but both of those companies opted to launch without securing additional licenses from the labels — believing them to be unnecessary.
It’s likely that, due to the licenses it is acquiring, Apple’s cloud-based service will be able to offer advanced features not offered by Amazon or Google.
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