As we mentioned yesterday, the Copyright Royalty Board in Washington, D.C. was considering a motion to increase the royalty rate paid by Apple to music publishers and the record labels from 9 cents to 15 cents.
That caused Apple to threaten to shut iTunes down should they be forced to pay this increased rate.
However, on Thursday the Copyright Royalty Board rejected the raise in royalty payouts.
It didn’t, however, back up Apple’s suggestion of lowering rates.
So, as of now, publishers will continue to get their 9 out of the 99 cents iTunes charges for songs.
Eddy Cue, iTunes vice president said that if the royalties were raised to 15 cents, then it would cause song sales to go down and Apple to probably operate at a loss.
Cue said, “Apple has repeatedly made clear it is in the business to make money and most likely would not continue to operate iTunes store if it were no longer possible to do so profitably.”
So basically Apple wants to pay artists less for them to make more.
It happens to a lot of big companies. When they make it really big, they forget about the little people and only worry about their pocketbooks!
[Image via AP Images.]
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