Universal threaten Apple

There's only one really successful online music store. There's one music player which dominates the marketplace, and that's tied to that online music store. The operators of that store don't sell the songs as their main business - they're about selling the players anyway, and are secure in the knowledge that the players they sell mostly get filled from other sources.

So, in what way does Universal think that threatening to pull its music off iTunes is threatening Apple? Wouldn't it simply undermine one of the RIAA's attacks on privacy if they had to say "you can download, mostly, tracks legally and simply, except for artists on the Universal imprints"?

Suddenly, there's a context to those whispers about current Universal artist Jay-Z being groomed to run a label out of Apple.