Apple Signs Deal with Warner Music for Cloud Streaming

According to music industry sources Apple has just reached an agreement with Warner Music Group to offer its tracks up on a new cloud based music service.

The sources spoke to Cnet who has attempted to get confirmation from either Apple or Warner Brothers but so far has been unsuccessful.

All Things D reported just this Thursday that Apple had  already signed ‘two of the top four’ record companies and that Apple content chief Eddy Cue was going to attempt to finalize deals with the other two over the weekend.

It’s unclear whether Warner Brothers was one of the original two labels that Apple had already reached deals with or one of the two left unsigned. If it was the latter that would mean that a deal with the fourth label, whichever that may be, is almost inevitable at this point.

This comes hot on the heels of the news that Google is looking to UK music streaming giant Spotify to help them get a cloud music service up and running. Google has attempted to launch it’s rumored GoogleMusic service since last year but have yet to introduce plans formally.

The recent release of Amazon’s Cloud Player has emphasized just how hot this market is right now and most of the industry considered it just a matter of time before Apple threw it’s own hat in the ring. Recent reports indicate that Apple has actually completed work on their cloud service and was simply waiting for deals to be in place with the major record labels before announcing it.

It’s likely that any introduction of the new streaming service will occur at Apple’s upcoming WWDC conference in June.

Google, Amazon and Apple are all banking on the assumption that the cloud is how most of us will consume media in the future. The music initiatives that all three companies are undertaking now are likely precursors to similar services in the movie streaming arena.