Streaming music services

Apple plans to close the iTunes music store, RIA Novosti reports with reference to the portal Weraveyou./news.am

Apple has acquired Shazam, the company announced today. The deal was first reported by TechCrunch last week and is worth $400 million, according to Recode. Shazam lets users identify songs, movies, TV shows, and commercials from short audio clips.

Apple is in talks to buy the popular song recognition app Shazam as the tech giant tries to compete with streaming leader Spotify, TechCrunch has reported.

When Sony introduced the Walkman in 1979, it changed the way people listen to music forever. Thanks to the iconic portable cassette player and many copycat devices, people were now able to listen to music on the move, and day-to-day activities such as commuting to work suddenly became a lot less boring.

Spotify's music streaming company is close to negotiating a new license agreement with Warner Music Inc - the latest big bargain with copyright music they need before attempting to appear on stock markets in the US, sources familiar with situation, informed Reuters.

The SoundCloud music streaming service, which fails to establish prosperous business model, currently has enough money to survive the fourth quarter after cutting 40 percent of its employees, a company spokesman said.

Streaming has become for the first time the top money-maker for the US recorded music business, but it has struggled to offset falling CD sales and downloads, industry data showed on March 22.

Spotify, the leader in the booming streaming industry, on March 17 reached a settlement to improve royalty payments to US music publishers as the company hopes to avoid potentially costly lawsuits.

Tech giant Apple late June 21 bowed to pressure from pop superstar Taylor Swift and raised payments to artists for its forthcoming music streaming service.

Apple announced a major new foray into streaming music on June 8 as it showed off a host of new software features for its iPhones, iPads and Mac computers.