The big thing for most of the companies who provide digital music such as Apple and Amazon is getting a cloud set up. The cloud if you already didn’t know lets users upload their own music collections into what is being called digital lockers on the internet so you may stream your music from any device that allows it. Although with Amazon and Google the cloud is limited due to not being able to reach deals with music labels, which I feel they shouldn’t need to do since they are just storing items you already own for you to access anywhere. Although if anyone could strike the deals it is Apple and reportedly they have. It is said they have reached agreements with three of the four major music labels, with the fourth label being very close to reaching a deal. iCloud as it has been dubbed is going the be Apple’s answer to all the other clouds out there.
Apple will be able to scan customers’ digital music libraries in iTunes and quickly mirror their collections on its own servers, say three people briefed on the talks. If the sound quality of a particular song on a user’s hard drive isn’t good enough, Apple will be able to replace it with a higher-quality version. Users of the service will then be able to stream, whenever they want, their songs and albums directly to PCs, iPhones, iPads, and perhaps one day even cars.
This wonder however won’t be free. Apple has most likely paid a huge price for any cloud music licenses, and it’s unclear how much of those costs it will eat or pass on to consumers. One possibility would be to bundle an iCloud digital locker into Apple’s MobileMe online service, which currently costs $99 a year and synchronizes contacts, e-mail, Web bookmarks, and other user data across multiple devices. Users will be able to store their entire music collections in the cloud—even if they obtained some songs illegally. That would finally give the labels a way to claw out some money on pirated music.