The somewhat elderly Eagles rock band has given record companies the boot with the band's latest album. The Eagles simply skipped working with a record company at all, and went straight to Wal-mart to sell their new CD. The two CD set is priced at a very reasonable twelve bucks. The artists get a bigger share of the sales, and music lovers spend less and get more.
Even more interesting, the two CD set is priced low enough that some music stores are simply going to Wal-mart, buying a bunch of the CDs, and then marking them up and selling them in their own stores.
This kind of deal probably frightens the music industry more than iTunes. Music publishers managed to retain much control over artists and their music despite the much lower distribution costs (virtually zero) of iTunes. But the Eagles have simply ignored the music publishers entirely.