According to today's LA Times (stupid registration required), Apple is in talks to buy Universal Music from Vivendi. According to Maccentral:

Quoting people close to Jobs, the article says that he feels the music industry is about to turn a corner in the copyright war. The continued crackdown on pirates will force users to look for a legitimate source for music downloads.

Maybe if the music industry had given music buyers a fair opportunity to buy music online, they wouldn't be in this jam. There have been rumours that Apple was testing an online music service. Universal already owns a significant share of both Emusic.com and MP3.com. Emusic.com offers a subscription service at a flat monthly fee. Universal started to experiment with releasing back catalogue items on Emusic, but the downloads are available to US subscribers only.

There are also rumours Intel is trying to buy Warner/Chappell music publishers.