The world's biggest music company is reportedly on the verge of launching its own music service, a move that could send shockwaves throughout the digital music industry if labels use the would-be rival as leverage against Apple's digital music dominance.

Business Week reported this week that Doug Morris, CEO of Universal Music Group, plans to join forces with other record companies to launch an industry-owned subscription service called Total Music.

While a subscription service wouldn't directly compete with the digital download service that iTunes offers, there have long been rumors that Apple is eyeing the subscription model. Business Week reported that Morris has already enlisted the second-largest label, Sony BMG, and is talking to Warner Music Group. Together, the three would control about 75 percent of the music sold in the US.

This isn't the first time the labels had designs on launching their own digital music services to compete with rivals from the technology side of the business.

In fact, label giants have previously owned both Napster and MP3.com in an attempt to use those firms' assets to launch a label-backed store. The labels also failed to get a digital store called PressPlay off the ground.

But Morris and company reportedly plan to get hardware makers or cell carriers to absorb the cost of a roughly $5-per-month subscription fee so consumers get a device with all-you-can-eat music that's essentially free. Music companies would collect the subscription fee, while hardware makers theoretically would move many more players.

"Doug is doing the right thing taking on Steve Jobs," ex-MCA Records chairman Irving Azoff, whose Azoff Music Management Group represents the Eagles, Journey, Christina Aguilera, and others, told the mag. "The artists are behind him."

Such a move by Universal was signaled in July when the conglomerate broke off talks with Apple and said it would only work with Apple on a month-to-month basis to sell its catalog, which includes the likes of U2, 50 Cent, and Kanye West, through iTunes. Universal followed that move in August by testing DRM-free downloads through a number of services but not iTunes.

It would seek to tap into consumers' thirst for free music, with users only buying an MP3 player and having the cost of the all-you-can-eat subscription subsidized by the hardware maker, such as Microsoft's Zune or SanDisk.

Despite Morris' cut-throat move to seize back some of the pie that Apple owns, Apple chief Steve Jobs, perhaps in recognition of the envious position his company resides in, threw Morris a compliment.

"Doug's a very special guy," Jobs told Business Week. "He's the last of the great music executives who came up through A&R. He's old school. I like him a lot."