A new report from GigaOm, cites a “tipster” as saying that Apple has purchased the domain iCloud.com from Xcerion, which just changed the name of its own iCloud service to CloudMe at CloudMe.com. According to the tipster, Apple bought the domain for about $4.5 million.

Naturally, one would have to assume Apple would be interested in that “i” in the name, as the company is expected to launch a cloud-based music service that would compete with Amazon, mSpot, and potentially Google. TechCrunch’s Robin Wauters says he asked Xcerion why they changed their name and got the following response:

“We decided we needed a name change to better reflect our new focus on files and storage, where the desktop is just one of many clients to access files and content stored in CloudMe. Since we a couple of months ago launched our iPhone and Android app, WebDAV and the automatic backup software, Easy Upload for Windows, Mac and Linux, we now have many clients that interact with our users’ content. There also are a lot of third party apps and software supporting the CloudMe online computer.”

Apple’s service is expected to be a paid service. While unconfirmed, a price that has been rumored is $20 a year. The service would let iTunes users stream songs from a remote server from anywhere there is Internet access.

Apple is said to be in talks with record labels about licensing of songs. Google is in the same boat. Both would surely like to have a product out as soon as possible, but those pesky legal issues always get in the way. Apple has reportedly already reached deals with a couple of the major labels. Obviously Apple has a foot firmly in the door with iTunes.

Google has actually been said to be talking to Spotify as a possible partner on its own music service, which was supposed to be ready with Honeycomb (the latest version of Android designed primarily for tablets).

Xcerion is still listed as the owner of the iCloud.com domain.