Universal Deals Huge Blow to Apple
According to Reuters, Universal Music has chosen not to sign a long-term agreement with iTunes. This is to provide other competitors with the opportunity to sign exclusive agreements. This would be a huge blow to Apple given that Universal Music Group produces one third of all music in the United States. I wonder if this would be a larger blow to Apple or to Universal given that iTunes has such a dominant position in the digital music industry. With all of the iPods and now iPhones being sold in the U.S., many of the Apple brand owners choose to use iTunes to purchase their music. Will they all go rushing to the competitors once one third of their music is no longer available via iTunes? While there is no way to tell what will happen, this is a huge blow to a company that is now seemingly on top of the world. It will be interesting to see how this story plays out.