Did Apple Drop $150m On iCloud Streaming Rights?

The New York Post has an interesting comment about Apple’s push to get all the major music publishers signed up for iCloud:

Apple will fork over between $100 million and $150 million in advanced payments to the four major music labels in order to get its iCloud off the ground, three separate sources told The Post. The Cupertino, Calif., tech giant has agreed to pay the labels between $25 million to $50 million each, as an incentive to get on board, depending on how many tracks consumers are storing. The size of the advance payments have been a major hold-up for Google, which had been negotiating with the music companies and now will likely have to pony up higher fees to get a rival cloud service into action, said music industry sources.

If true, I guess Apple’s immense war chest if going to good use to get all of the big four on board. Hopefully Apple manages to recoup the loss with the rumored $25 annual fee for the service — though they might have trouble if we see another Ping-like flop on our hands.

[via 9to5]