Talking of Universal not especially liking Apple and iTunes, the boss of Universal Music's owners Vivendi has furthered tensions between the two companies by publicly criticising iTunes, and in particular that continued resistance towards the variable pricing model favoured by the record companies.
According to Reuters, Vivendi chief Jean-Barnard Levy told reporters: "The [revenue] split between Apple and producers is indecent. Our contracts give too good a share to Apple".
Of course Apple and major-label-haters everywhere would presumably take issue with that statement, given that the major labels currently receive about 70% of any download sale via iTunes which, even though a percentage of that is then passed on to the song's publisher, is actually quite a lot, especially considering Apple swallow the transaction costs, such as the percentage paid to the credit card firm.
Levy didn't discuss what percentage split he would consider "decent", though it seems that it is, in fact, the old dispute - ie the lack of variable pricing on iTunes - that really bothers the Vivendi chief, who added: "We should have a differentiated price system".
Universal currently has a month to month contract with Apple meaning it could back out of iTunes at short notice. Neither Universal nor its parent company have ever actually suggested they would stop supplying the market leading download platform altogether, though Levy kept his options open, concluding: "We are in a phase during which many different actors are talking to each other. We are trying to put in place several projects to ensure that music is better remunerated. We are not just talking to Apple".