CNet has published an interesting article by John Borland on iTunes and the music industry. Snippets:
What's new:
The dominance of iTunes and iPod has recording business moguls questioning their deal with Apple.
Bottom line:
Frustrated at what they see as Steve Jobs' intransigence on song pricing and other issues, some record executives are now turning their hopes toward other partners, such as mobile phone carriers.
Jobs also has refused to license Apple's antipiracy technology, called FairPlay, to rival MP3 player makers, and has blocked music formats from other companies such as Microsoft from the iPod. This makes iPods and the iTunes store incompatible with rival digital music devices and stores, fragmenting the market in a way the labels fear ultimately limits sales.
"We hate the current situation," one top record industry executive said, referring to the issue of incompatibility between different companies' music devices and services. "There is one man who's going to decide this...No record company by itself can basically tell Steve Jobs, 'You're not going to get our catalog unless you open up FairPlay to Microsoft.' We can't do it together."
