Fortune reports that Apple is threatening to kill the iTunes Store over music royalties. 
The Copyright Royalty Board in Washington, D.C. is expected to rule Thursday on a request by the National Music Publishers’ Association to raise royalty rates on songs purchased from online music stores, like iTunes, from 9 cents to 15 cents per track. 
“If [...]

Almerica reports that Apple has rejected the hotly anticipated Podcaster iPhone application from the App Store:
Today I finally got a reply from Apple about the status of Podcaster.
Apple Rep says: Since Podcaster assists in the distribution of podcasts, it duplicates the functionality of the Podcast section of iTunes.
That’s right folks, it duplicates the functionality of [...]

The new features in iTunes 8 haven’t impressed me. Genius is mainly a way for Apple to sell you more music, and the new views in iTunes are very slow, compared to the older list views. 
Something that is very useful in iTunes 8, though, is its support for individual podcast settings:

This is a great feature, [...]

Apple’s Let’s Rock event today offered anticipated updates to the iTunes and Apple’s iPod lines, but failed to do two things that many were hoping for: eliminate concerns over Steve Jobs’ health and offer “one more thing” - an unexpected introduction with some “wow”. 
Jobs noted wryly that “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated,” but [...]

Several sources are reporting, unofficially, that Apple will be introducing a new version of iTunes next Tuesday.
While this is an unofficial rumor, it seems likely, since it’s been close to 2 years since iTunes 7 was released.
Here’s a rundown of expected features for iTunes 8:
Genius
iTunes 8 includes Genius, which makes playlists from songs in your [...]

According to the latest MusicWatch consumer surveys from The NPD Group, Apple is again the top music retailer in the US.
The five leading music retailers in the U.S. for the first half of 2008 (January through June, based on purchases of CDs and a-la-carte digital music downloads) are:

iTunes
Wal-Mart (Walmart, Walmart.com, Walmart Music Downloads)
Best [...]

New Scientist points out some legalese buried into Apple’s iTunes EULA that you’ll want to keep in mind, if you’re planning on using iTunes to run a nuclear reactor:
“Licensee also agrees that Licensee will not use the Apple Software for any purposes prohibited by United States law, including, without limitation, the development, design, manufacture or [...]

Apple today announced that it had sold over five billion songs from the iTunes Store.
The company also announced that iTunes customers are now renting and purchasing over 50,000 movies every day, making iTunes the world’s most popular online movie store.
Apple said in a statement that its iTunes Store is now the world’s most popular online [...]

Microsoft is still struggling to come up with a Zune platform that competes with Apple’s iPod/iTunes juggernaut, reports Electronista:
Microsoft has revealed that it has sold two million of the music players since their launch in November 2006, revealing relatively flat growth for the device lineup.
The results leave Microsoft with just a fraction of Apple’s US [...]

I’m a big fan of Apple TV - but it’s going to be a hard sell unless Apple gets more studios on board and builds up a library of long-tail content. Apple TV & iTunes currently offer less than 1,000 movies  - or about 89,900 less than Netflix:
The version of the iTunes Store reachable from [...]