Remix Your Future

This is a developing story -- Billboard will update as more information becomes available.

The merging of Beats into Apple following the latter's $3 billion acquisition of the former has arrived at a difficult stage, as a rumored 200 employees are to be let go from Beats due to redundancies between the companies. The news of layoffs was first broken by Apple news site 9to5Mac, with details furthered by the New York Post yesterday evening.

Affected departments within Beats include human resources, finance and support, with some employees said to be kept on until January of next year. Ian Rogers, Beats Music's CEO, and Trent Reznor, the company's creative head, will be staying on, alongside Jimmy Iovine (whose contacts and experience in entertainment have been widely considered an impactful "get" for Apple) and Dr. Dre.

9to5Mac also points out that the technological bedrock of Beats Music's is not easily amalgamated into Apple's iTunes, and will need some restructuring from the ground up.

The companies' merger was approved by the European Commission earlier this week and is expected to be approved by American regulators as well, considering the healthy competition in both the headphone and streaming music businesses that Apple/Beats will face... though, not all of them will be winners.

Neither Beats nor Apple immediately responded to a request for comment.