Apple threatened to shut down its Itunes store if the music industry didn't do as it was told by Steve Jobs.

Fortune magazine has said that Apple once threatened to close Itunes if the music industry did not bow to its will on pricing. Apple made the threat because music industry executives wanted more control on the prices of MP3s in the Itunes store. Apple told them that there was no way that any of their pricing structures would make money, and that if Itunes did not make money then the site would be shut down. The comment was made by Eddy Cue, vice president in charge of Apple's Itunes store, in a written statement to the Copyright Royalty Board.

On Thursday, the CRB is due to rule on a proposal by the National Music Publishers' Association to make download stores pay more for the songs they sell. The publishers want an increase from nine cents a track to 15 cents, a 66 per cent jump.

Cue claimed that raising music prices at Itunes would reduce the number of purchases, stifle customer growth, and shrink payments to artists.  He said that if Itunes were to absorb the increase in royalty rates, then the store would be likely to lose money, and the company wasn't interested in that. X

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