"Everyone, please go this way. At Apple's headquarters in Silicon Valley, San Francisco, California, several lines of people are walking through the corridors of the headquarters led by Apple employees.

With the big sales of the iPod, the declining Apple has begun to show its former busyness and vitality, and the faces of the staff who come and go are full of bright colors.

And the people who followed the guide were not small people, from the president of Sony Records, to the global vice president of BMG Records, in addition to Warner Records, which is being cut, the presidents of the world's four major records came to Apple together, of course, not for sightseeing.

After explaining their intentions and greetings, in a short period of time, the executives of the record company, who were suffering from the impact of the iPod, asked Jobs for "cooperation" at the top.

In later documentaries, the executives of these record companies faced Jobs with a begging face, while Jobs had a cold expression of ignorance.

Then the record companies that were crushed by piracy and wanted to die shouted in unison that Apple teaches well, and iTunes races high.

But in fact, the first three versions of iTunes did not have any online digital stores, but only CD to storage functions.

It wasn't until April 28, 2003 that the fourth version of iTune became the iTune Store, and it wasn't until then that the sale of digital music was realized.

But even then, it wasn't until 2005 that iTune was opened to the indos system, and after that, Apple's digital music store became a globally influential digital sales medium.

Now, with Sid's "getting in the way", the hardware of the iPod has been compatible with the indos system from the beginning, which has laid a solid foundation for the iPod to enter thousands of households, plus the software and hardware under Jobs's efforts, and

At the beginning, the emergence of Sean Parker's Napster made the Internet free download popular, and the record industry either sued Imperial Union or the Napster website, and even "frantically" accused those who downloaded pirated music, not hesitating to put them in prison, but also wanted to kill chickens to show monkeys.

But the result is that the pirated download has not been banned, and another Apple's iPod Walkman has swept the market, and it is not like Napster, which is complicated and cumbersome to operate on the Internet, and the iTunes of the iPod is easy to operate, except for the instruction manual.

Apple's official website is accompanied by instructions for its use, and the major record companies are very unhappy about this, believing that it is the unsuitable Napster that keeps the record industry alive, but the new iPod is very easy to use, which only makes illegal music more rampant.

So today they are nominally asking for help, but in fact they want to get a piece of Apple's most profitable iPod.

This seemingly rude thing is not without precedent.

At that time, when Viacom's parent group controlled BesTV, the predator of the physical DVD chain store, because the videotape sales of the seven major studios had to be repaid through BesTV's channels, but at the same time, the physical costs such as warehousing and transportation required to operate BesTV had to be borne by Viacom.

This made Satsuma Lei Shidong very dissatisfied, and finally he reached an agreement with several other companies to let the other six major studios bear part of the cost for BesTV in exchange for a short period of time to return the bill.

With such a small calculation, the sound of quarrels continued to be staged in the conference room, and the teams of the four major record companies wanted to quarrel for better conditions.

But, Jobs was not interested in any of this, he listened impatiently, and then suddenly interrupted: "I've heard enough, what you say doesn't make sense......"

The brawl in the conference room abruptly stopped, and everyone looked at him, including the vice president of Sony Records, whose lips squirmed and wanted to say something.

But before they could speak, Jobs waved his hand, and just as he was about to say something, a series of telephone ringings suddenly broke the silence in the conference room.

Hearing this phone ringing, Jobs couldn't help but show a smiling expression, only those who were familiar with him knew that this expression had always been his habitual expression before he cheated people.

"Since everyone has something to say, why don't you listen to my old friend first. Jobs smiled faintly, and then he nodded to his assistant.

Immediately, Apple's staff turned on the projector and connected the phone, and a somewhat familiar voice came, "Hey, can you hear me?"

Then the projector flickered twice, and the face of a young man with glasses appeared in front of everyone, with a baby-faced smile on his face, and he nodded behind him as he said, "It's connected, Boss." ”

When I saw this baby-faced eye on the first day, the bigwigs of the major record companies suddenly felt a "I'm Cao!!"

Because this young man who looks like a technician is none other than the founder of Napster, who was sued by them for bankruptcy back then, Sean Parker!

As Napster disappeared over the years, Sean Parker was forgotten by most people, although later some in the record industry heard that he had joined another Silicon Valley company, but it had nothing to do with these record bigwigs.

But now, this former sworn enemy jumped out coldly and couldn't help but startle everyone, but before they could touch their little hearts, another voice interjected, "Is the video call working?"

Then a young man with black hair sat down in front of the video call after Sean Parker got out of the way.

It's Sid!

If there's anyone who's giving these big guys the most headache right now? It's not even Steve Jobs and his iPod, it's Sid and his Fire Lion records.

The hot sales of the iPod only indirectly shook the sales prospects of physical records, although Sid knew the "miserable" situation of physical records in the next few years, and Jobs also firmly believed in his own judgment, but what has not happened yet, no one will really have a sense of urgency to burn their eyebrows.

But since Fire Lion Records openly ate Warner Records, anyone with a bit of a brain knows Sid's calculations.

Just like Sony back then, Sid bought Warner Records in order to promote the iPod Walkman to buy a large number of its song copyrights to lay the foundation for the next iPod music licensing.

It's not that Sid looks down on the little money he makes from selling records, it's just that even if he is tied to a large company of the level of the five major records, its annual profit is only about two or three hundred million US dollars, not to mention that compared with other subsidiaries of the Fire Lion Group, even if it is used to make a wedding dress for Apple's iPod strategy, he doesn't blink his eyes.

"So, Steve, did you tell the rules?" asked Sid, turning his head to look at Steve Jobs across the phone.

"No, isn't this waiting for you to talk about it?" Jobs smiled like an old fox, and Sid knew at a glance what he had in mind, yes, he wanted to dump all the things that offended people on himself.