Apple's iCloud music locker service won't be making its way to UK shores until 2012 a spokesman from the Performing Rights Society has said.
Seen by some as an amnesty for music pirates, Apple's iTunes iCloud offering, which launches in the US in July, will allow users to upload their media to massive Apple data centre.
Perhaps most interestingly the new service will allow users to match music from their library to Apple's 8 million-strong library and swap with Apple for a legitimate DRM free version.
This will happen even if the tracks are acquired through illegal means, and tracks, which are not included in the Apple database, can be stored and accessed without question on the new system.
We think that Apple will take the money from the match service to pay music owners a small fee whenever at track is matched. The music industry will be happy because it will recoup money from pirated music which it has never done before.
Apple will be happy because the new service will drive sales like it has never done before - but their probably won't be any money from the $25 yearly music match fee left for them. But it would seem that Cupertino are willing to take the hit.
Unfortunately the UK music industry hasn't signed the same deal and negotiations are at a early stage meaning the service won't be available anytime soon.
An unidentified PRS spokesman told the Telegraph that talks about iCloud were at “a very early stage”.
"The licensing team at the PRS have started talks with Apple, but are a long way off from any deals being signed. It is very much the early stages of the negotiations and is similar to the launch of iTunes – which began in the US and took a while to roll out to other countries," the spokesman said.
It be a whole lot easier if the minions at the PRS got on the phone spoke to the MIAA and found out whether the deal is a good one. And in turn sign the same deal. Unfortunately we don't live in an ideal world so it could take another 6 months before the same deal is thrashed out in the UK.
It's probably down the PRS wanting to have lots of important meetings, free lunches and made to feel it is important. Hopefully the penny will drop and they can kick all of those bloodsucking lawyers out their office and let the UK public use Apple's iCloud music service now rather than in 2012.