Speculation on Jobs’ health — I know, I know.
Anyway, a clinical endocrinologist, followed up by some people that seem to know what they’re talking about:
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Second post of interest today, by poster TS Low:
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It’s an attempt by Apple to circumvent the music industry labels. iTunes is a preferred gateway to new music for many consumers already. But in order to get that music Apple is still having to use the intermediaries who own the distribution rights to those tracks.
Now Apple is creating a comprehensive 3-way link between the fan, the artist and Apple. At some point the traditional distribution medium and corporate apparatus will become moot under this arrangement as the artists will less and less rely on a label and can have the ability to interact with fans at a truly individual and personal level.
This poses an interesting proposition, that was mentioned at the dawn of iTunes and the iTunes Music Store, that I haven’t heard voiced much lately. So it raises the question: Who will be the first artist to sign directly to iTunes? Those signed to labels would be lucky to get 10 cents, whereas the label gets to pocket the majority of the approx. 70 cents. Current labels would be reduced to selling back catalog.
How likely? Not sure.