The music industry isn't pleased with what Apple is doing with the iTunes store - BusinessWeek lets them have a soapbox:

Not necessarily. As has been true since the start, iPod owners mostly fill up their players from their own CD collections or swipe tunes from file-sharing sites. Now legal downloads may be losing their luster. According to Nielsen SoundScan, average weekly download sales as of Nov. 27 fell 0.44% vs. the third quarter. Says independent media analyst Richard Greenfield: "We're not seeing the kind of dramatic growth we should given the surge in sales of iPods and other MP3 players."

Which brings us to a grand irony: Apple, which launched the digital music revolution, may now be holding it back. Critics say Apple's proprietary technology and its refusal to offer more ways to buy or to stray from its rigid 99 cents a song model is dampening legal sales of digital tunes. "The villain in the story is the iPod," says Chris Gorog, CEO of Napster Inc. (NAPS ), which sells both subscriptions and downloads. "You have this device consumers love, but they're being restricted from buying anything other than downloads from Apple. People are bored with that."

Umm, yeah - we'd much rather buy from bozo outfits that install rootkits on our machines. People are "bored" with the Apple store? Well heck Chris - that sounds like a heck of a business opportunity to me. How about you try *gasp* competing with Apple instead of whining about their business model? Hmm - I decided I'd take a walk over to the Napster store and have a look around - pricing information on their subscription service seems to be pretty well hidden. I wandered by the FAQ, and came across this:

What happens to the music I downloaded to my PC if I cancel my Membership?

If you cancel your Membership, the music you downloaded from Napster will no longer be playable at the end of your current billing period. You can still use Napster Light to play and organize all of the music you own without a membership fee. Access Napster Light with same user name and password. With Napster Light, you can also sample 30-second clips and buy songs for 99¢ and albums from $6.95. If you decide to resume your Napster Membership, your Napster music library will be restored and your downloaded music will be playable again.

And they have the gall (later in the page) to call what Apple does lock in. I can burn CD's off of iTunes to my heart's content. If it's stuff I bought, they don't bring across anything but basic track info, but they don't render my collection worthless either. I'm not sure how this restriction plugs into Napster Lite, where you can buy songs one at a time for 99c. But the main membership - info on which I did find in the FAQ - costs $14.95 per month. Hey Chris - I'm bored with that. Looking over at iTunes, I notice that Apple just charges me 99c a song, and doesn't turn my music off if I decide I like another service better.

Which one of these do you think was set up with the help of our *cough* friends *cough at the RIAA, and which one wasn't?