Feb 17, 2011 13:53 GMT  ·  By

Reports saying Apple would lose Sony as an iTunes partner have been proven false by Sony’s Network Entertainment COO, Brandon Layden, who went on record to say that Sony had "no intention of withdrawing."

Speculation that Sony would withdraw its content from iTunes, including iOS apps, was spurred by the banning of Sony’s Reader app from the App Store, culminating with comments from PlayStation's Australian group chief Michael Ephraim.

However, Ephraim’s comments in regards to Apple’s policies were merely misinterpreted, says Layden. Apple's music store is too important to leave, he noted.

“Sony Music as I understand it has no intention of withdrawing from iTunes,” said Layden, adding “they're one of our biggest partners in the digital domain.”

“I think those words were either taken out of context or the person who spoke them was unclear on the circumstances,” Layden told Business Insider’s SAI.

The report outlines that, although Layden doesn't work for Sony's recording business, he is involved with the Sony Music Unlimited service.

As such, if Sony were to make a move like pull its music from iTunes, he'd be likely to know about it.

What is true is that Sony plans to open a competitor to iTunes.

A music streaming service called Music Unlimited, it will be opening in Australia soon.

Michael Ephraim said music streaming is on track to offer greater freedom to play music on a variety of devices.

This, as opposed to Apple’s current concept, will allow users more freely access songs from any device, because Music Unlimited will be stored on servers.

However, Apple is also believed to plan a similar approach to distributing music, as well as videos, movies, pictures etc. In fact, more evidence of that just emerged today.