Apple Computer dominates the online legal music sales industry primarily because of a failure of recording label companies to:

The dominance of Apple in the online legal music sales industry can largely be attributed to the recording label companies' failure to adopt a new business model that aligned with the evolving digital landscape. In the early 2000s, when digital music was gaining momentum, traditional music distribution models—primarily reliant on physical sales and distribution—were becoming outdated.

Apple successfully capitalized on this shift by creating a user-friendly platform, iTunes, that provided consumers with a legal, convenient, and affordable way to purchase and download music. The recording labels, however, struggled to adapt to this new reality. They were anchored to their existing practices and hesitant to embrace the digital model that emphasized individual track sales rather than full album purchases, ultimately allowing Apple to fill that gap.

In contrast, options focused on technology investment, complementary assets, and modernization of the information value chain, while relevant to the broader context of business change, do not directly address the core issue of the inability to shift the business model effectively. The crux of the matter lies in recognizing that without a proactive and strategic evolution of their business paradigm, the recording companies missed out on the opportunity to compete in the newly emerging digital marketplace.