As iTunes and Apple close in on total dominance in the music industry, and the digital music market, it’s worth looking at just how Apple was allowed to get such a stranglehold on one of the biggest industries in the world economy.

With the music business being so lucrative, how can the major labels have allowed Apple to get so big, so quickly? In just five years Apple has grown to own 70% of all online music sales, and is expected to top 28% of ALL music sales come 2012.

Apple’s foray into the music industry after they acquired SoundJam MP in 2000, a program that was to become the iTunes application.

The music labels made an exclusive agreement to license their intellectual property to Apple because initially the iTunes Store was only available on the Mac, which represented a smaller marketplace that the studios could test the fledgling digital download market.

Naturally the sales to Mac users came about very quickly, resulting a Windows version of iTunes being launched soon after; opening up the World market for Apple, iTunes and the music industry as a whole.

This instant control iTunes was afforded has been impossible for anyone to break ever since.

In addition to the monopoly iTunes enjoyed, the global success of the iPod helped increase the reach of the digital download platform.