The RIAA was tossing lawsuits left and right to try to stem the tide of piracy. Companies tried to build up digital marketplaces, but the studios and labels owned the rights and didn't want to play ball. And most of the companies shot themselves in the foot by also not playing ball; after all, the RIAA was wrong, they were dinosaurs, they didn't understand tech and their demands were anachronistic nonsense.

Along came Apple, and they basically sat down with the RIAA and did nothing but play ball. Exclusive deals? Got it. Our best cryptography folks working on a cipher algorithm to keep your music "secure" on a device someone else owns? Yes, we'll tell you we can do that and invest time and money into making it plausibly true. A revenue-sharing agreement so lopsided it would make a used car salesman blush? Here's our vein; open us up and leave us with as much as you think we need.

And that lasted for a couple years. Then Apple unilaterally announced they were dropping the encryption. It was, after all, a pain in the ass for end-users.

And the RIAA screamed.

And Apple just stared them down and said "You killed all the alternatives. Where else but iTunes will you go? You can't even go back to CDs; customers liked digital so much they stopped buying them and the machines that play them."

And for a brief period, Apple became de-facto owners of music distribution overnight by simply giving the previous owners everything they thought they wanted.