Apple, if you haven't noticed, has been increasingly "musical" in recent years. From something as massive as its acquisition of Beats to its high-profile ad during the Grammys last night, Apple clearly has music on its mind (and has for many years, in fact).
But could the tech visionary behind iTunes be toying with the idea of being a record label? It's certainly not out of the question. At least, that's according to a new report from TechCrunch.
"Apple denied unsubstantiated rumors that it would acquire Taylor Swift’s label Big Machine this weekend, but that idea doesn’t seem so far-fetched," says TechCrunch. "Yes, The Beatles’ label happened to be called Apple Records, but what if Apple Computer got into the business of owning music itself?"
With Apple’s streaming music service on the way, it is expected that Apple will lobby hard for everything from exclusive music to exclusive debuts (consider the U2 deal Apple made last year). As Apple continues to cement itself as a leading provider of digital content -- from movies to music -- the company is seeing unprecedented revenue from the digital content side of its operations. So why not accelerate? That's the question being asked by those who see Apple becoming a record label itself one day.
Even if not, it's certainly enough to make streaming music providers a little hot under the collar. "Spotify and the other existing streaming services are going to have a hard enough time competing with Apple’s play already," TechCrunch adds. "iTunes is said to have over 800 million credit cards on file and is available in nearly 150 countries. Compare that to the Spotify’s 15 million paying subscribers and roughly 60 countries of operation."
Source: TechCrunch
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