RUMOR: APPLE AND SPOTIFY IN ACQUISITION TALKS

A tip from an anonymous source over at TechCrunch says that Apple is talks to acquire music service Spotify.  Spotify is an online music service and has created a lightweight software application that allows instant listening to specific tracks or albums, with virtually no buffering delay. users will simply download and then log onto their service enabling on demand streaming of music.  Currently Spotify is only available in Europe where they are quite profitable due to excellent licensing terms from the European music labels.

It was also rumored that Google tried to acquire Spotify around the same time Apple acquired LaLa, for almost $1 billion, but the deal fell apart because Google wanted to grandfather in the music rights.  This means Google wanted the terms of the licensing agreements Spotify has with European music labels to continue.  Unfortunately, in most of the agreements there is a clause that if the company gets bought or acquired the agreements must be renegotiated, making most music services unbuyable. [TechCrunch]