Not a single 7-inch, say digital dissenters

WITH The Beatles and Apple behaving as new best friends, the attention has now switched to other big-name artists who are withholding their music from the iTunes store. It's not so much that the bands in question have a huge problem with their music being made available for digital down- load; it's more that their managers/ agents are looking at the bottom line and advising them against the move.

iTunes pays a reduced royalty compared to the rate a band can get from the sale of their album in a physical record shop. This hardly bothers most newer acts as they realise the importance of digital downloads, but quite a few older bands - who grew up at a time when contracts were heavily weighted in favour of labels - are wary of the reduced returns from downloads. Also, many older bands simply aren't in a position to license their work to iTunes because they signed some shoddy distribution/publishing deal years ago, which means they have no legal claim over their work.

The two big-name iTunes holdouts are Led Zeppelin and Radiohead. Both seem to have the same reason for their digital dissent. The reason Led Zep won't sanction the use of their music on the site is due to what can only be called musical ideology. The standard explanation from the band is "we don't feel the need to do anything, at least not right away". Hidden beneath this statement is a strategic tussle with iTunes that could have far- reaching consequences for all concerned.

One of the main attractions of iTunes is that consumers can select individual tracks as well as buy an entire album. Plenty of people find - and they're usually right - that some bands have only one or two songs worth paying for. So iTunes sells a lot more individual downloads than it does complete albums.

Led Zeppelin are famously an album band and have always refused to release their most popular individual tracks as singles. The migraine- inducing Stairway to Heaven song remains the biggest-selling piece of sheet music (an average 15,000 copies sold each year) and is frequently listed as the greatest ever-rock song, but Zep's record company never could convince them to release it as a seven-inch. To do so would have meant editing it down for radio play, and the band simply wouldn't countenance such an act. Musical integrity and all of that.

Naturally, that would all change if the band's catalogue went up on iTunes, with hundreds of thousands of people downloading just Stairway to Heaven while ignoring the other tracks on the album. Led Zep simply believe that their albums are complete works in themselves that shouldn't be broken down into individual tracks.

Apparently there have been no negotiations between Led Zeppelin and Apple. The band say they will make their music available only if it can be sold in an album-by-album manner. iTunes is rumoured to have replied "let us sell individual tracks or we're not interested".

If iTunes were to back down, it would mean making an exception for Led Zeppelin or allowing all bands the option of selling their work on an album-only basis. The stand-off continues.

Actually, a precedent has already been set. Try to buy U2 and Green Day's The Saints Are Coming as an individual song, and iTunes will tell you that you can get it only if you buy the entire U218 singles collection. This probably has nothing to do with iTunes and everything to do with a record company edict. But now that they've made an exception . . .