Apple’s iTunes store is one of the most significant e-commerce projects on the ‘net, and anyone in the business should pay close attention to what they do. Next to Amazon, they’re probably the largest online merchant. Certainly one of the most successful, selling over a billion songs in its first year of operation, and causing a major shake-up of the music industry.

The big news is that they just overcame a major hurdle in dealing with one of the big record companies (EMI): they are now offering DRM-free music files for sale.

iTunes broke all of the rules when it came to the 80/20 rule, and was a major focus point in Chris Anderson’s famous book on Internet economics, The Long Tail.

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