...and the monster grew, and grew, and grew, and they don't like it that they got aced. Tough!
The best part is that iTunes is exposing more artists to potential customers than the RIAA ever would - tons of people are releasing tracks on iTMS that the record companies turned up their noses at for no good reason, and those people are making pretty good money from those sales.
So when the RIAA drones crank up the latest “iTMS killer” site only to see it fail, it’s really amusing. They’ve had the years to figure out why iTMS is a runaway success the likes of which have never been seen before in the media industry, yet they still don’t get it.
1. Apple does not care if the iTMS turns a profit (though it does, and quite an enormous one). The iTunes Music Store exists for one reason and one reason only - to give people a compelling reason to buy Apple hardware. That’s it.
2. Since they don’t have to care about nickel and dime-ing their customers for each song, they do something totally revolutionary - they give the people what they want (both artists and customers) and little to none of what they don’t want. They have no egotistical need to crank up prices or put the screws to their customers to get one more penny out of some old and worthless catalog.
Most of the record labels in the RIAA still don’t get it. One notable exception, EMI does - in fact, it looks like back catalog sales of EMI properties on iTMS may very well save that label.