Apple is close to a deal to bring the company’s iTunes Store to Brazil, according to a report from Brazilian newspaper O Globo. Citing a report from Tuesday that a local regulatory authority has approved the Apple TV for the Brazilian market, the newspaper said that Apple is near a deal with the country’s music royalty bodies that would, at long last, allow the iTunes Store into the market.
The publication noted that the Apple TV manual says (according to a Google translation of the Portugese text), “To play the contents of a Mac or PC in the Apple TV, you need an Apple ID to rent movies or buy TV shows from the iTunes Store.”
Since Apple has gotten the device and the manual approved by local regulators, the inference was that Apple was near to a deal to bring iTunes to Brazil, the world’s seventh largest economy.
On Wednesday, O Globo published a follow up story (Google translation) that cited Michael Couto, executive director of União Brasileira de Editoras Reunidas, a royalty collecting body in Brazil, who said that negotiations with Apple were in an “advanced stage.” He said that if everything goes well, iTunes will launch in Brazil in December.
One issue that has delayed an iTunes launch until now in Brazil is the complexity of the local copyright system. Apple has reportedly worked with a third party company to track and manage royalty payments relating to iTunes.