Considering that the major labels pretty much own all the artists and songs that are popular these days, naturally Apple would want to court them first for iTunes Radio. However what about listeners who might not be too enamored by today’s mainstream offerings? What if there are listeners out there who might prefer the indie variety? Well according to a report in the Wall Street Journal, it seems that Apple is interested in courting the indie labels over as well, possibly in a bid to make iTunes Radio a one stop destination for all music lovers.
According to the report, Apple will reportedly offer these indie labels a near-identical deal that they have reached with the major labels, meaning that the money paid out to indie labels and their artists would be a lot more generous compared to those of Apple’s rivals, such as Pandora who is actually looking to cut the rate they are paying out to artists. Interestingly there is also a clause in this agreement which states that Apple is allowed to use snippets of the song in original programming without having to pay a royalty, and considering that Apple does not have any original programming at the moment, we wonder what that could imply. Of course it could simply be that Apple is just covering the bases if and when they do make original programming, so we’ll leave it as it is for now.
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