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At the moment, if you want to get your iTunes-bought music on to several devices it requires you handle the transfers yourself after that initial download. Apple doesn’t like that, and wants to offer customers the ability to download the music to any and all devices you want to listen to it on after that initial purchase.
In order to do that it needs to convince the music publishers what a great idea it is and get them to sign up to such a license. And that’s exactly what’s happening at the moment through talks with Vivendi, Universal, Sony, Warner, and EMI.
While this sounds like a tough sell to an industry that historically prefers DRM and pushes for piracy prosecutions, it’s also an industry that doesn’t much like the growing popularity of streaming services such as Pandora and Spotify. The question is, would they allow unlimited downloads and see it as a way of boosting revenue while diminishing the streaming services’ need to exist?
Apple’s desired outcome from these talks is the ability to offer each customer a permanent copy of each song they buy stored in iTunes. That song can then be downloaded as many times as necessary to a device linked to the iTunes account (iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch).
