ITunes has sold over 5 billion songs and more than 160 million iPods have been purchased; can you imagine your walk down the street, while listening to your iPod, knowing that iTunes is no more? Because of the music industry’s attempt to increase the royalties for online music distributors, Apple stated that the purpose of a business is making money and without profit there is no sense in further operating the iTunes store. The battle between part of the music industry and online music distributors is yet to be over, its fate ultimately being decided by judges appointed by Congress.

They will need to decide if the demand of increased royalties is well justified by the music industry. Buying music online is extremely easy and safe, the buyer having more freedom of choice, there is no shipping, no fear of damaged goods. The era of the compact disk might be over, as memory sticks and cards are getting larger, faster and smaller in size. MP3 players, iPods and MP4 players are the ultimate solution for listening to your favorite music while traveling or taking a stroll. To increase the price of online music now, will not only murder people’s need to buy online, it will also kill the CD. The fear that increased prices will guide more and more people to the “free” peer-to-peer alternative is, indeed, an entitled one.

The 99 cents per melody, the price that iTunes is presently offering, appeals to many, you can almost say it has a sort of charm, a certain “je ne sais quoi”. Apple CEO Steve Jobs definitely thinks that the price shouldn’t change and that it represents the best way a song should be sold. The question on everybody’s lips is what will happen to iTunes if the music companies win this one? Is it really possible that the largest online music store to shut down? Is Apple ready to give up on all those iPod users? Most probably, the answer is “No.” The real concern is that higher prices will benefit digital pirates and illegal peer-to-peer file sharing. And that would be very bad for the music companies.