Apple's $150M iCloud Service Not That Pricey, Source Says

Apple's iTunes helped transform the music industry from compact discs to portable digital players. (Apple)

CUPERTINO, Calif. – Reports of as much as $150 million in advance payments to get Apple's iCloud off the ground are like the clouds themselves: vaporous.

A source familiar with the matter told FoxNews.com that Apple has made exactly zero advance payments to the four major music labels to grease the wheels for its online music storage and streaming service, which the company will announce at a special event on Monday.

Several reports online -- including a Friday New York Post report citing three separate sources -- argue otherwise. These stories suggest Apple will fork over between $100 million and $150 million in advance payments to the four major music labels in order to get its iCloud off the ground.

The Cupertino, Calif.-based tech giant agreed to pay the labels $25 million to $50 million each as an incentive to get on board, depending on how many tracks consumers stored, the Post reported.

Not so, a source familiar with the matter definitively told FoxNews.com, explaining that no money has changed places yet -- nor will the company make such a payoff.

The size of the advance payments was a major holdup for Google, which was also negotiating with the music companies and now likely needs to pony up higher fees to get a rival cloud service into action, according to music industry sources.

A Google cloud service could now be in the offing as soon as September, sources familiar with the talks said. Apple CEO Steve Jobs is expected to unveil Apple's the iCloud service, a web storage offering that frees space on hard drives and makes music available to Apple's many devices, at its developer conference Monday.

One executive said that the cloud service would initially be free to people who bought their music from Apple's iTunes store, but Apple was said to be considering a $25 a year charge in the future.

The music companies were set to divide the fee with Apple, with the tech firm taking a 30 percent cut, 12 percent going to music publishers and the rest to the labels to divide with their artists.

Apple finalized its cloud deals with all labels and their publishing units Thursday, according to sources.

NewsCore contributed to this story.