Historically, Apple (AAPL) has shunned subscription music services, and fearing they might compete for dollars best spent on iTunes, made it impossible for them to interoperate with the iPod. A few months back, Apple would have likely done the same with Rhapsody, if only to tweak Real Networks (RNWK) CEO Rob Glaser, who infamously disparaged CEO Steve Jobs for his “pigheadedness” at the Digital Living Conference in 2005.

But things are a bit different today. With the Federal Communications Commission’s inquiry into Apple’s rejection continuing consideration of Google Voice for iPhone still fresh in its mind and the outcome of that inquiry still undetermined, Apple might be a bit more inclined to allow Rhapsody into the App Store. It certainly can’t withhold it by claiming it replaces core iPhone functions, as it did with the Google (GOOG) app.

And so we find Apple in a uniquely uncomfortable spot: Accept into the App Store an on-demand streaming music application that will compete for the attention of iTunes users or reject it and suffer further unwanted scrutiny by the FCC, not to mention a nasty public relations nightmare.

Affected employees were notified this morning, and executives are meeting with remaining staff this afternoon to do damage control.

Slowing consumer and business spending due to the econalypse is the obvious explanation for today’s cuts, though Rhapsody’s struggle to compete with other music services, among them Apple’s (AAPL) iTunes, clearly played a role here as well.

RealNetworks last implemented layoffs in December 2008 when it cut 7.5 percent of its workforce.

UPDATE: A Real spokesperson has confirmed the cuts, noting that the company is “placing greater emphasis on mobile devices and Web platforms and less on editorial and heavy client software.”

Tim Quirk, VP of music programming for Rhapsody, has taken to Twitter to try to drum up some job leads for the folks he just had to let go.

These devices are just repositories for stolen music, and they all know it. So it’s time to get paid for it.”

–Universal Music Group Chairman/CEO Doug Morris on digital music players, November 2006

Universal Music Group appears to have finally taken Steve Jobs’s “Thoughts on Music” essay to heart–although not in the way the Apple CEO might have imagined. Heeding Jobs’s call to abandon digital-rights management, the company announced late yesterday that it will sell at least some of its music catalog online without copy protection for the next few months. Described by UMG as a “test” of the DRM-free option, the effort will see the label selling DRM-free tunes through retailers like Amazon.com, RealNetworks’ Rhapsody and Best Buy.

But not Apple’s iTunes.

Why exclude the third largest music retailer in the United States? Publicly, Universal claims it’s so that iTunes could serve as a “control group” against which to compare its sale of DRM-free downloads elsewhere.

A plausible explanation, but improbable. More than likely, this is an effort to temper Apple’s growing influence in the music industry. A month ago, Universal scrapped its long-term contract with iTunes, opting instead to continue the arrangement on an at-will basis that will give it an easy exit should disagreements over pricing become a problem.

And make no mistake, pricing is a problem. Apple is the No. 3 music retailer overall, according to NPD Group, and its ubiquity in the download space has given the company serious leverage in negotiating pricing with the major record labels. It’s fairly clear then that UMG’s DRM-free effort is a “test” not just of unrestricted digital formats, but of Apple’s growing influence in the music industry.

Said Mike McGuire, vice president of research at Gartner, “It seems like a boldfaced move to blunt Apple’s influence.”