This rumour has been talked about for quite some time now and has yet to see the light of day. Now Reuters is now reporting that Apple is finally set to launch a cloud-based music service — presumably putting its massive North Carolina data centre to some real work at long last.
Details are still fairly light beyond that, but Reuters says that Apple’s service will actually launch ahead of Google’s similar cloud-based option, which it reports is now “stalled,” citing “several people familiar with both companies’ plans.” According to Reuters, the service will let folks store their music (and only music, apparently) on Apple’s servers and then access it on any device with an internet connection — and a copy of iTunes, we presume. Shouldn’t be hard, since iTunes is now the leading music store on the net, and should be the biggest.

Peter Kafka of All Things Digital is agreeing with Reuters, and said that Apple is actively seeking to license the music for its streaming service before launching. According to Kafka’s sources, Apple has already secured deals with two of the big four labels and plans to launch “pretty soon.” The deal would allow Apple to store a single master copy of a track on its servers and then share that track with multiple users, probably through a digital certification to reduce duplicated copies.

[Reuters via All Things D]