Jermaine Dupri Pops a Cap Off at Apple

Rap mogul Jermaine Dupri has an article on Huffington Post criticizing Apple for not selling Jay Z's album American Gangster on iTunes. The problem is that Jay Z wants to restrict sales to an entire album and not allow the purchase of single tracks as Apple requires. If Apple's behavior continues, Dupri wants to unite the record industry giants against Apple in a boycott in order to destroy iPod sales:

"Apple thinks that's never gonna happen. They think that we as the record industry will never stick together. But Universal sells one out of every three records. All it'll take is for Warner Music to say, "You know what, I'm with you," for us to shut 'em down. No more iPods! They won't have nothin' to play on their players! We can take back the power if we're willing to sacrifice some sales to make our point."

While I agree with Mr. Dupri's overall sentiment about siding with artists and also agree that Apple should just go ahead and sell the entire album, he needs to do a little homework on the history of mp3s if he thinks the boycotting of the iTunes Music Store would put a dent in iPod sales. In fact, an argument could be made that iPod sales would increase by such a move, as those who have reformed back to legal purchasing of music would soon discover how easy bittorrent is, more so than Napster in terms of downloading huge chunks of music. Want every great rap album from 2007? Click here, wait an hour, and enjoy.