The fledgling return of Apple, its new Mac OS X alternative platform and its experience in digital media with QuickTime all helped create a viable third option that promised a better experience for users, contained within the sandbox of Apple's higher end customers.
Steve Jobs negotiated deals with the existing five major recording labels, Universal, Sony, Warner, EMI and BMG, which allowed Mac users access to buy 99 cent songs and $9.99 albums using Apple's simple FairPlay DRM in the new iTunes Music Store in the spring of 2003.
The new iTunes Music Store created a legal marketplace to allow buyers to browse and download new music, and pay for each track individually.
The collapse of the initial internet bubble "dot com" economy, starting in 2000, helped to deflect some panic away from the music industry, but the reality was clear: the CD sales that had been inflating the music industry were now leaking air with the violence of the Hindenburg.
It hoped to use its ATRAC music format to enable a digitized version of CD sales that could work across PCs and music devices, but couldn't quite pull things together.
