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Warner Music Group may be headed in the same direction as Universal, as it is possibly not going to be renewing its contact with Apple iTunes in full for the next year. There are reports that Warner may enter a month-to-month contract with iTunes, but no official statements have been released.

With the upcoming music service Warner plans on launching in conjunction with Universal and Sony, the record label already has hopes of competing directly with iTunes. Warner’s music service would be free, with the costs of songs being offset by the purchase of devices for the music to be played on. While this method is still in question, it’s clear that free music is becoming a new business model for independent artists like Radiohead, and other music services like SpiralFrog.

With additional options for music sales popping up from Amazon and Wal-Mart, Apple’s one-size-fits-all pricing model for iTunes has become problematic. And with more and more methods for distribution and monetization of music now, most of the major players are taking a direct stance against iTunes, from NBC to Sony, to Yahoo. With Universal already having pulled music and video content from iTunes, and possibly Warner too, an extremely large portion of iTunes content could be easily lost to competitors.

[via washington post]

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