Why Apple may control the future of labels

There is no question that iTunes dominates the realm of digital music, and considering that the future for record labels mostly revolves around this, then you could say that iTunes does have the record companies under their thumb to a certain extent.

We have already seen how another company's control over an area which overlaps with a record label's domain can cause rifts. MOst recently this happened with Universal pulling their artist's music videos from MTV's online channels. Whilst Universal doesn't want to have certain conditions imposed upon them by MTV, they may have to grin and bear it as they cannot deny the influence that MTV has over that particular aspect of their business. The same applies with iTunes in the download arena.

So, as there is no getting around the likes of MTV and Apple it is essential that new labels bear strongly in mind how they work alongside their peers.