This could be a nice holiday gift for Ignition Partners, the Bellevue venture capital firm that's had a little bit of a rough year. Bloomberg News is reporting today that Apple is in talks to acquire the online music service lala.

Bloomberg doesn't have details on the possible sale price, and the talks appear to be ongoing.

Lala allows users listen to more than eight million songs over the Internet for free for one play, with the customer then able to purchase tracks for cents each.

In addition to Ignition, lala has raised cash from Bain Capital Ventures. Lala raised a $20 million round last year.

There's been a decent amount of activity and consolidation in the online music industry, with MySpace earlier this gobbling up Seattle-based iLike for a reported purchase price of $20 million.

UPDATE: Well, as reader Louis D. points out in the comments below, it is not looking like such a nice holiday gift for Ignition after all. Peter Kafka at Media Memo -- citing a source familiar with the transaction -- says that lala was purchased at a "fire sale price." That means the investors -- who pumped $35 million into the company -- won't make their money back on the deal.

Meanwhile, Brad Stone at The New York Times reports that lala was running out of time and therefore started looking for an acquirer. He writes:

One person with knowledge of the deal, but who was not authorized to discuss it, said that the negotiations originated when Lala executives concluded that their prospects for turning a profit in the short term were dim and initiated discussions with Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president in charge of iTunes.

Stone also reported that Warner Music earlier this year wrote down $11 million of its $20 million investment, signaling that lala's value was on the decline.

UPDATE II: Now, Peter Kafka at Media Memo says he got the purchase price wrong, and that Lala actually sold for $80 million to Apple. That's more than double the $35 million that went into the company, so hardly a "fire sale" as Kafka previously labeled it. Here's more from Kafka's latest report:

Apple ended up paying around $80 million for the company, according to multiple sources. That’s less than half what investors valued the company at in 2008, but it’s more than the $35 million the company raised throughout its life. Which means that some investors could get their money back and more. But not all of Lala’s investors. Warner Music Group (WMG), for one, ended up getting back about half the $20 million it put into Lala, I’ve confirmed with people familiar the company.

UPDATE III: Now, TechCrunch is reporting that the deal is actually closer to $17 million.And since lala had about $14 million in cash in the bank, that means the deal is actually closer to $3 million, according to Michael Arrington.