Apple could do to music what Amazon has done to books: start a price war.

The iPhone maker is negotiating with music labels in an attempt to break the $10 per month price point that has become standard for streaming music services, according to a report from Re/code.

The news comes on the heels of reports that Apple is planning to revamp and rebrand Beats Music, the streaming service Apple acquired as part of the $3 billion deal for the headphone company.

Whatever the form of a relaunched Beats Music, a price point below competitors like Spotify and Rhapsody could help it attract customers, few of whom joined the service after its initial release.

Apple has considerable pull in the music industry thanks to its iTunes platform, but it may be difficult to convince labels to take even less money. The Internet has already taken music revenue from all-time highs to multi-decade lows.

Image: Bain & Co.

Music labels are probably also well aware of what can happen when a tech giant starts trying to push for preferential price points.

The ongoing Amazon battle with Hachette (and really, the book industry as a whole) has erupted over the ecommerce company's belief that $9.99 is the proper price for an ebook. Amazon was able to undercut competitors for years with its cheap ebook prices. Now, with Amazon holding a dominant position in books sales, the $9.99 price is on its way to becoming the norm.

Thus if Apple is able to start charging, say, $7 a month, the industry will be in danger of having that price become the new precedent.

Streaming music services are already being closely watched to see if they can become profitable. Spotify, which charges $10 a month for its Spotify Premium service, is still in the red, having reportedly lost around $200 million since it was started. Some analysts, like Generator Research, don't think streaming services will ever be profitable.

Apple brings scale to the table. The primary fear from streaming services is that there just may not be enough people willing to pay $10 per month. With Apple, streaming music could end up being bundled into hardware as a feature instead of a standalone service.

That move would put streaming music into the hands of millions more people than competing services. Spotify announced in May that it had reached 10 million subscribers. Meanwhile, Apple sold 35 million iPhones in just the third quarter of 2014.