Has the success of the iPod given Apple too much control of the music business? I'm not sure how many consumers feel that way, but it certainly seems to be a problem for the recording industry.

Who will rescue the record labels? This article from Business 2.0 says we should keep an eye on Navio, a company "that wants to help shift the balance of power back to the media companies."

Imagine if you went to a music site to buy a single download for 99 cents, but instead you were offered the option to purchase the perpetual right to that song. With this right, you could download the song to your PC, your iPod, or your cell phone in whatever format was appropriate. And if you got a new computer, or if the digital-rights-management software protecting the file changed one day, you wouldn’t need to buy the song again. Your rights to the song would be stored online. Pay once, and it would be yours forever. If you lost it, you’d just download it again. Or you could share the song with a friend, or even resell it, depending on what rights you bought.

I'm skeptical of the article's claim that Navio-protected content will soon work with the iPod. Anything you can reverse-engineer, Apple can "fix" later with an iTunes or iPod update.

Finally, the idea that power should shift back to the labels strikes me as bizarre. Can we shift a bit more power to the artists and their audience please?

Read the article: The Empire Strikes Back