Phew! For a second there I actually believed Apple when it threatened to shut down iTunes. Now it won’t have to, seeing as though the Copyright Royalty Board in Washington has left royalty rates unchanged.
And what does Apple have to save, now that it knows it will only have to pay 9.1 cents per song sold for at least the next five years?
We’re pleased with the CRB’s decision to keep royalty rates stable
Thanks, Apple spokesman!
The bigger issue here is that, for better or worse, Apple will remain the dominant player in the world of digital music. For all the Comes with Music and Play Now Plus decoys that come out, the labels are still going to have to deal with Jobs & Co. if they want to sell their music to a reasonable number of consumers. You can bet that the labels are more than a little annoyed.