I've a @mac.com account...Not that I want to, but when did people change to @me.com?

I've a @mac.com account...Not that I want to, but when did people change to @me.com?

I've a @mac.com account...Not that I want to, but when did people change to @me.com?

Music licensing agreements will keep iTunes In The Cloud and iTunes Match out of the hands of UK iTunes users until "at least" the first quarter of next year according to a spokesman for the Performing Right Society, a UK-based organization that represents composers, songwriters and music publishers in that country.

Quoted in The Telegraph, that spokesman said negotiations with Apple were in a "very early stage," and that parties were "a long way off from any deals being signed." A music executive at a major UK record label said "no one expects to see the cloud music service live on this side of the pond until 2012."

Vice president and research director at Forrester Research told The Telegraph "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."

The wait for iTunes In The Cloud will be similar in other international countries. For comparison, it took 8 months for the iTunes Music Store to go international after it launched in the United States in October 2003. iTunes Stores in France, Germany and the United Kingdom opened in June 2004 with a further EU expansion following in October of that year.

Typical of the music industry to drag their feet over this.

Typical, but I think welcome. Let the US “beta test” this for six months. While it sounds great, I’m sure the matching process will need considerable fine tuning before it’s close to 100% reliable.

Plus, I think that for the majority of users iTunes in the Cloud fixes a problem that doesn’t exist. That isn't to say that it isn't a good thing, only that a delay is hardly going to stop people buying iOS and OS X devices.