Apple's streaming music service delayed by licensing negotiations with Sony

According to sources who know all about Apple's streaming music plans, negotiations to license music from record companies and music publishers have been crawling along at a snail's pace. Talks with one company in particular, Sony/ATV, have been grueling. The Japanese media giant raised the fees that streaming music app Pandora must pay for the company's songs by 25%, and by withdrawing digital rights for its tunes from Ascap and BMI, Sony is forcing Apple to deal directly with the huge conglomerate.

The slow negotiations have forced Apple to pull back from a hoped for February launch around the time of the Grammy Awards, to a more realistic launch set for this Summer. Those insiders familiar with Apple's plans say that the company wants to offer an app, dubbed iRadio, that will provide free streaming music that will be supported financially by ads running on the iAds platform.

Apple seeks to compete with Pandora, which is the second most downloaded app of all time with over 65 million users (number one for those who must know, is Facebook). While rumors of a streaming music service offered by Apple have come and gone before, hidden icons found last month inside iOS 6.1 running on an Apple iPad have stirred the speculative pot once more. But this time, it looks like this is for real.

source: NewYorkTimes via Engadget