News 

General counsel Brad Smith said that Apple was 'doing pretty well', and that it was the music companies that were doing less well. It is they, not the company controlling the delivery mechanism, that Smith believes should be able to decide how their products should be provided to the general public.

However, he did concede that Microsoft would welcome a similar deal to the one Apple struck with EMI to be the launch partner for the British music publisher's DRM-free, higher-quality library when it debuts next month.

Digital Rights Management has become a hot topic in recent months after Steve Jobs penned an essay, Thoughts on Music, in February of this year. In it, he said that Apple would fully embrace any move by the music industry to sell non-rights-managed tracks, but that it was currently prevented from doing so.