The music recording industry has called the shots with artists and retailers for so long that it's hard to feel sorry for them now that the big companies are being squeezed. In fact they are being squeezed from both sides and are a bit like the meat in a sandwich between Apple Computer and the artists they exploited for many years.

As reported yesterday, Apple Computer has defeated the combined might of the world's largest record companies and forced them to adhere to its pricing policy. Consumers can continue downloading music from Apple's online music store, iTunes, for 99c a track.

Also reported last week 1970s rock bands Cheap Trick and The Allman Brothers are suing their recording label Sony Music for allegedly short changing them over royalties from iTunes and other digital music downloads. Sony gets 70c for each song sold online and, according to the bands, deducts 20% of the revenue for packaging and 15% for breakages, which amounts to 24.5c per download. At present the bands receive 4.5c per download but claim they should receive 30c.