You may remember back in early July when Universal Music Group (UMG) head Doug Morris decided not to renew a 2-year contract with iTunes, and instead provides content month-to-month on an “at will” basis. Reason particulars were not initially cited but generally revolved around how Jobs and iTunes put restrictions on how UMG could market their music.

It sounds like Jobs is far from hearing the last of Morris and Universal Music. According to a report today in BusinessWeek, the company is gearing up to launch an iTunes competing service of their own to be named “Total Music”. Morris and company isn’t looking into this venture lightly either. Aside from his own company Morris has also convinced BMG Music to join in, and is already having talks with Warner Music Group. Together the three companies music giants would have control of over 70% of all the music sold in the U.S., with Apple iTunes currently holding control of over 70% of the music sold online in the U.S.

Universal Music Group has announced that it is going start offering 99 cent downloads of its online music without any copyright restrictions as somewhat of a trial starting August 21 through Jan 31. UMG says it will be offering the music tracks in the MP3 format but individual retailers will be allowed to sell them in whichever DRM-free format they wish. This comes after last month when UMG decided not to renew its contract with Apple iTunes, and although …

Amidst all the excitement of the successful iPhone launch by Apple last week, the company was hit with a blow from Universal Music Group when they decided to not renew their 2-year contract to provide music for iTunes.

The reason for the decision was not clear, but labels have had issues in the past with Apple setting a single price for all songs or albums, and the single-song purchase ability has cut into sales where previously with purchasing a CD, consumers were required to buy the whole album. The …