Warner Music Group, have received at least $9 million back of the $20 million it invested in online music service Lala.com, according to a proxy statement the music giant filed on Monday with the US Securities and Exchange Commission).
Apple confirmed the acquisition of the streaming music site last month without, typically, revealing any financial details of the deal.
According to Warner Music Group’s filing notes: “In Dec 2009, the Company sold its equity interest in la la and entered into an agreement to terminate a memorandum of terms relating to the formation of an international joint venture for total cash consideration of approximately $9.0 million as part of a sale of la la to Apple Inc.
“The warrants had an exercise price that was in excess of the total merger consideration paid in respect of the shares for which it could be exercised and, therefore, expired at the time of the closing of the sale of la la to Apple Inc.”
Lala scans users’ hard drives and creates a duplicate music library that can be accessed via the Internet.
According to the Lala website: “Users can take your music and fuse it with a massive licensed catalog to easily play, buy and share on the Web.”
Many have speculated that such technology could be built into new versions of Apple’s iTunes.
The popularity, if not the commercial success of Spotify, the Swedish streaming music service, may have influenced Apple’s decision to buy Lala.
As well as offering an ad-supported service, Spotify currently charges £9.99 per month for an premium ad-free version, which can be accessed via an iPhone application, which can be listened to in offline mode, without an Internet connection.