The iPod and the music industry

Oct. 23, 2001

Widespread piracy was already eroding the profit margins of the recording industry when Jobs introduced the first iPod -- a Mac compatible MP3 player with 5GB of memory capable of storing roughly 1,000 songs. Sales were slow at first, but they accelerated when Apple introduced a Windows-compatible iPod the next summer.

Sales exploded with the 2003 launch of the iTunes Music Store -- the 99-cent shop where music lovers could buy songs with a single click and music publishers could finally start getting a cut from digital downloads.

Today, high-end iPods can hold up to 200,000 songs, and the iTunes Store -- having served up more than 6 billion downloads -- dominates the music industry.