If anyone would actually pull the trigger, I think Apple is the company to do it. We have seen that they are one of the most cut throat businesses out there and their sole purpose is to make money. The instant iTunes does not make them money I can see them shutting down the store.

Now that being said, I don't think Apple would close the books and walk away. Instead I think this would be the impetus for them to turn iTunes into its own record label, sign artists themselves and increase exposure of smaller labels.

M.A.S.

BlOOOOOOOODDDDDYYY HELLLLL!!!

Alex2643

I'm not a iTunes user so I couldn't give a flying turd if they shut it down. But to think that they actually would is ludicrous. How many millions of people are using it? How many would not buy an iPod without it?

DirtyBits

@speakerwizard: So you're saying that Apple is having a hard time competing in the digital music marketplace?

Are we talking about the same company? Because the Apple Inc. that I'm thinking of is the Cupertino-based global corporation that controls more than 2/3 of the digital music marketplace and has been investigated for antitrust violations by the EU and its member countries.

OMG! Ponies!

Is it just me, or does it look like a young Diane Keaton sitting behind Jobs in that picture?

jbdyson

Can I just say I find the line 'for some reason the British are panicking' offensive. What is happening is that some dorks are trying to make a total non-event into a news story (just like they did with the LHC/black hole/end of the universe stories). The rest of us Brits couldn't give a monkeys.

Baldyman1966

The record industry is circling the drain; Apple shuts off the revenue stream from iTunes, and we all turn to the less than reliable (but free) PTP networks.

I welcome the day when the record business returns to the hands of people who love music, and leaves those greedhead MBA's to find employment in an industry that better suits their interests, e.g., waste management.

eediebax

@rattyuk: It's a slow news day..

Jrsy is the dude, playing the dude, disguised as another dude

@seda: But how would everyone know how 'trendy' and 'cool' you are if your PMP isnt branded with its cult logo???

venomous_duck41

apple should be suing record labels right now for offering drm free to other vendors and not them, there has gotta be something wrong with that! for a start is causing apple investigations in other countries such as finland, why should apple be taking the blame for drm when its the record labels that want it (on this particular vendor) but not others?

speakerwizard

Oh darn. Apple is waving a big stick around. Not that I give a damn. Two weeks of ZunePass and I'm loving subscription-based music.

xoxoxo

A guy who switched to Zune.

OMG! Ponies!

When is someone going to actually report that this statement was made OVER 9 months ago?

rattyuk

Or just get your mp3's elsewhere.

seda

WOW U guys get alot of use from that pic. HAHA

Yetibelle

iTunes plays a big part in money going to the record companies and the royalty boards, so maybe what will happen is that Apple is exempt from this? Maybe?

michaelleung

@se.blackheart:

I disagree. They may take a hit, but not much.

Dont be fooled. People buy iPods cause of the hardware. Not because of the iTunes Store.

ferrdidly

The National Music Publishers Association are Idiots of Galactic proportion. I guess if itunes shuts down, The majority of us will go back to free download from Limewire or other sharing programs.

sebas0069

@M.A.S.: "... they are one of the most cut throat businesses out there and their sole purpose is to make money."

What an unorthodox business strategy.

Excuse my sarcasm, but I have to point out that the sole purpose of any business is to make money. Everything else is academic.

That aside, the iTunes Music Store does not necessarily need to make money. It's purpose is to drive sales of other Apple product. However, it's unlikely that Apple would continue to support it if it actually lost money.

Personally, I like the iTunes Music Store but I certainly would appreciate it if Amazon would open their music store in Canada so that I would at least have another viable option.

robjennings

@michaelleung:
Nah, this is just bullshit posturing. If iTunes went, iPod sales would suffer as a result (average Joe non-techie iPod owner only knows iTunes - No iTunes, no buy iPod). Apple won't have that.

Bluesk1d

if Apple stopped selling music in iTunes, their current US market share of 75% of all mp3 players would decrease considerably...look for Apple to increase their media thru iTunes and new hardware to play it on (Apple HD tv).

se.blackheart

It's just you (jbdyson)... Diane Keaton NEVER looked that good...
and that's sayin' somethin' considering the women you refer to
ain't that great either... and what's with the 80's Dallas TV show
clothing and 'do ...phfew.

Now back to our regular program of silly news discussions.

DaxDaring

As an avid user, I'd very much like for iTunes to remain. After being hooked on their TV downloads and movie rentals, having it disappear would be very unfortunate.

Kaiser-Machead's LEGO WALL-E

@OMG! Ponies!: show us yer Zune tattoo, unless y'know, it's in yer bathing suit area.

se.blackheart

@jbdyson: It's not you. Because it is a young Diane Keaton sitting behind Jobs in the picture.

This is the famous 'shopped framegrab from The Godfather: Part II that Giz uses whenever there is a law-related story concerning Apple.

Ms. Keaton can currently be seen in a terrible remake of a decent movie that has been butchered into a chick-flick and is currently hawking beauty cream to aging Baby Boomers.

OMG! Ponies!

@speakerwizard: There might be, but that is not a can-o-worms worth opening. All the record companies have to say is that they did want to offer DRm-free audio to Apple, but Apple wouldn't agree to variable pricing, like Amazon has. Apple is playing hardball and the record labels are finally countering with good move. The problem for the record companies is that the iTS is convenient enough to make Amazon unimportant to many as the sales are showing, and that most Amazon Music Store sales are probably being used on iPods anyway. Either way, Apple is winning here, even though in the short run Apple is looking like a bad to many who don't understand why iTS music is DRMed when others aren't.

Leonard Nimrod

@jbdyson: Yo, I thought the same thing, only I completely forgot the actresses name. That's pretty uncanny.

NagChampa

Aww, poor Music Publishers, they're probably all sad because Congress saved Pandora, looking for another fight...

b33rl0rd

Duh, I should have noticed Robert Duvall sitting there. Nevermind people, nothing to see here.

jbdyson

I have music on itunes and it only cost me 9 dollars a YEAR per album to keep it on there. And i get 100% profit of every song sold. So i really have no idea how apple is keeping so much of the money unless the third party company is paying a CRAP load of money every so often. PLUS its itunes plus so its a better quality and drm free.

Spaz6to8

i don't get why DRM is such a big deal all of a sudden. its like people FINALLY GET that apple does this and they've done it since day one and the number of sales has always been growing.

Spaz6to8

@se.blackheart: Ask and ye shall receive.

[www.omg-ponies.com]

Oh - you wanted my Zune tattoo. Not my tattooed Zune.

OMG! Ponies!

Do you blame them? I don't like anything Apple, but a company has to make money. Why would Apple absorb the extra cost? That is dumb business.

What really needs to happen is a look at the monopoly that is the RIAA.

vincentw561

@Baldyman1966:

Chill Baldy... Just as our country has a rep for stuff like this, they have the redneck and anti everything rep to deal with. Tis all even :p

will

just an uncertain opinion here, but instead of jumping into panic mode over higher royalties, wouldn't it be entirely plausible for everyone to expect Apple to jack the price of its downloads accordingly and that be the end of it? ...i mean, if the taxes on gasoline go up, no one will stop selling cars

stupidjerk

@M.A.S.: What?!?!?!?!? A business that wants to make money??? Damn those people at Apple!!

soopafly

I sent this tip in 3 days ago and was surprised it was never posted, and I kept checking back.

I know it won't happen since the number one music retailer won't just say, "Oh okay, I quit" just like that. They're just bluffing big time.

kylo4

@venomous_duck41: theyd know the same way they can tell your a short stubby troll on the forums of gizmodo and probably live in a trailer.

imTheKing

God forbid people were forced to buy lossless music instead.

Skorpius

Ok no need to slag off the Brits that much

ichi1

@rattyuk:

OVER 9 MONTHS?!?!?

Shodan

"...Is it just me, or does it look like a young Diane Keaton sitting behind Jobs in that picture?..." That IS a young Diane Keaton. Also, actor Robert Duvall (who didn't look young even when he was young) is sitting next to the Photoshopped Steve Jobs.

NoletaBullfinch

@se.blackheart:

Apple is a hardware company. They make tons more money from the iPod than the music.

A person would have to buy 500 songs to equal the profit of the sale of one iPod. Still, it's a nice selling feature to have their own music store. Anyone gonna buy another brand of player to get on Rhapsody?

It's funny. One day we're saying "iTunes Music Store sucks" and the next day "the iPod would never sell with out it."

MichaelScrip

@Bluesk1d:

What would be the alternative? The Sansa Store? The Zen Store? :)

I agree that Apple makes it easy to buy music... but there are plenty of other places to buy music for any MP3 player. You certainly don't NEED the iTunes store to own an iPod.

I doubt Apple would close the store anyway.

MichaelScrip

@Shodan: "OVER 9 MONTHS?!?!?"

Ok, it's a reeeeeeeeaaaaaaaalllllllllyyyy slooooooooooooowww neeeewwwwwwwwwwwsssssssss daaaaaaaaaayyyy....

Jrsy is the dude, playing the dude, disguised as another dude

@soopafly:
You both took my statement out of context. Of course they all want to make money, but with iTunes this is not a case for example where they need or are trying to a.) gain market share (i.e. Xbox), or b.) push adoption rates or technical boundaries (i.e. Google Products).

There are plenty of products and services that you can point to in the tech sector that are money losses but provide some other tangible gain for the company. iTunes isn't the case. If the iTunes store closed tomorrow I don't think the iPod would magically fall from #1 as the mp3 sales leader.

M.A.S.

@M.A.S.: not to be a wiseass BUT im pretty sure Apple Records (the record label founded by the Beatles) sued Apple Computers many years ago and forced apple to agree to stay out of the music business. iTunes was a loophole because that technology didnt exist at the time and because its a music vendor but Im 99 percent sure

you can read about the whole Apple vs. Apple history

[en.wikipedia.org]

tiredman9

Steve almighty should know by now that if they strip DRM from music it wont really have any affect on iTunes Revenue. Mainstream consumers will pay the dollar because its Apple. I am savy enough to get legal music cheaper. But I buy "Steve Jobs" no matter what the cost. If I could get Gucci loafers for $20.00 I would not want them.

gotrichpimpn

I like what the guy said about amazon getting drm free music but not i-tunes it is obvious that this is an attempt to shut down i-tunes so they can start bullying everyone else again.

donkill

Man's technology has exceeded his grasp. - 'The World is not Enough' September 24, 2008 - 'LHC on hold until spring of 2009' - PhysicsWorld.com: "The magnet failure last week at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) means that the accelerator will not be up and running again until early spring of 2009, say officials at CERN. To keep the project on schedule, the team running the accelerator near Geneva have decided to skip a planned test run at an intermediate energy and re-start the LHC in 2009 at the full beam energy of 7 TeV.") And begin creating Black Holes. Zealous, jealous, Nobel Prize hungry Physicists are racing each other and stopping at nothing to try to find the supposed 'Higgs Boson'(aka God) Particle, among others, and are risking nothing less than the annihilation of the Earth and all Life in endless experiments hoping to prove a theory when urgent tangible problems face the planet. The European Organization for Nuclear Research(CERN) new Large Hadron Collider(LHC) is the world's most powerful atom smasher that will soon be firing groups of billions of heavy subatomic particles at each other at nearly the speed of light to create Miniature Big Bangs producing Micro Black Holes, Strangelets, AntiMatter and other potentially cataclysmic phenomena. Particle physicists have run out of ideas and are at a dead end forcing them to take reckless chances with more and more powerful and costly machines to create new and never-seen-before, unstable and unknown matter while Astrophysicists, on the other hand, are advancing science and knowledge on a daily basis making new discoveries in these same areas by observing the universe, not experimenting with it and with your life. The LHC is a dangerous gamble as CERN physicist Alvaro De Rújula in the BBC LHC documentary, 'The Six Billion Dollar Experiment', incredibly admits quote, "Will we find the Higgs particle at the LHC? That, of course, is the question. And the answer is, science is what we do when we don't know what we're doing." And CERN spokesmodel Brian Cox follows with this stunning quote, "the LHC is certainly, by far, the biggest jump into the unknown." The CERN-LHC website Mainpage itself states: "There are many theories as to what will result from these collisions,..." Again, this is because they truly don't know what's going to happen. They are experimenting with forces they don't understand to obtain results they can't comprehend. If you think like most people do that 'They must know what they're doing' you could not be more wrong. Some people think similarly about medical Dr.s but consider this by way of comparison and example from JAMA: "A recent Institute of Medicine report quoted rates estimating that medical errors kill between 44,000 and 98,000 people a year in US hospitals." The second part of the CERN quote reads "...but what's for sure is that a brave new world of physics will emerge from the new accelerator,..." A molecularly changed or Black Hole consumed Lifeless World? The end of the quote reads "...as knowledge in particle physics goes on to describe the workings of the Universe." These experiments to date have so far produced infinitely more questions than answers but there isn't a particle physicist alive who wouldn't gladly trade his life to glimpse the "God particle", and sacrifice the rest of us with him. Reason and common sense will tell you that the risks far outweigh any potential(as CERN physicists themselves say) benefits. This quote from National Geographic, "The hunt for the God particle", exactly sums this "science" up: "If all goes right, matter will be transformed by the violent collisions into wads of energy, which will in turn condense back into various intriguing types of particles, some of them never seen before. That's the essence of experimental particle physics: "You smash stuff together and see what other stuff comes out." Read about the "other stuff" below: http://www.SaneScience.org http://www.risk-evaluation-forum.org/anon6.htm http://www.LHCFacts.org/ http://www.LHCDefense.org/ http://www.LHCConcerns.com/ Popular Mechanics - "World's Biggest Science Project Aims to Unlock 'God Particle'" - http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/extreme_machines/4216588.html"

ChesterHapidooya

AWESOME PIC Godfather.

TannerDeion