No iTunes In The Cloud for UK until 2012

A spokesperson for the Performing Right Society has claimed that Apple’s iTunes In The Cloud service won’t be coming to the UK until the first quarter of 2012.

The news comes via The Telegraph which reports that Apple has begun negotiating deals in the UK about ensuring rights to artists and labels but this process was only in the ‘very early stage[s].’

The Telegraph also spoke to a UK-based record label executive who also claimed that ‘no one expects to see the cloud music service live on this side of the pond until 2012.’

Of course, this is usually the case when lots of money is involved. Just look back at when Apple launched iTunes in 2003 – that took eight months to launch internationally. And while we should be getting iTunes In The Cloud by 2012, it’s very likely that other countries will have to wait even longer.

But there are other theories on why Apple is struggling to get its deals signed with UK record labels. According to Forrester Research, ‘the UK arms of all the major record labels are biding their time and waiting to see how the service affects download sales in the US before they sign up to anything.’

One thing we can’t quite get our head around though is why Apple just didn’t send out some of its Agents to speak to UK labels prior to the announcement of iTunes In The Cloud, like it did in the US.

This way it could have killed two (or several) birds in one foul swoop, which would have meant no delay on the UK-version of the service.