Apple Threatens to shut down iTunes

Apple is awaiting a verdict this week from the US Copyright Royalty Board about whether it will be forced to raise it's iTunes royalty payout from 9 cents per song to 15 cents per song. Apple would like to decrease it's royalties to 4.8 cents per song and said "Apple has repeatedly made it clear that it is in this business to make money, and most likely would not continue to operate [the iTunes store] if it were no longer possible to do so profitably." For more information check out this article.


*UPDATE* US Copyright Royalty Board has ruled that it will not be changing royalty rates for the time being, therefore iTunes will not be shutting down anytime soon.

Did iTunes Kill the Album?

British newspaper, The Telegraph, has posted an article that looks at the backlash from artist over iTunes selling singles and killing album sales as whole piece of art. You can check out the article here. Food for thought: if artist did not want people just buying one song off of an album, they should focus on putting more than one good song on an album.