EMI says iTunes has too much 'influence'

UK major label EMI this week railed against Apple’s iTunes in the body of its latest annual financial statement.

The record labels are unanimous in their praise for Apple’s achievements in online music sales, but resent the huge slice of the music sales market the company has carved out. Apple is now the biggest music retailer in the US, for example.

This gives Apple too much control, label bosses feel. Now EMI has found this sufficiently significant to warn that a key risk to the music industry is:

“The substantial dependence on a limited number of online music stores, in particular the iTunes Store, for the online sale of music recordings, and the resultant significant influence that they can exert over the pricing structure for online music stores.