Forbes' Arik Hesseldahl says that Apple could put the legal dispute with the Beatles behind them if it would spin off the iTunes Music Store: "Apple could make this entire thing go away by spinning off the entire iTunes Music Store as a subsidiary and stop promoting it under the Apple name. This would harm its prospects not one bit. No one who's been awake during the last year hasn't heard of an iPod or seen it in one of those TV ads in heavy rotation....

Source: MacMinute

Well they spun of the iPod, why not iTunes? Will they do it? Will it be fragmented too much if they do? Why not spin off the PowerBook and the PowerMac, and then have OS X a spin off as well? Yes I am being silly here, but this has happened before. Apple spun off Claris, then brought it back in, then spun it off as a new name, FileMaker, then retained ClarisWorks under the Apple brand. Its all fun and games... Well it worked for FileMaker. We do not know if it is working for the iPod, we assume it is.

To dodge a legal bullet with The Beatles and Apple Corps, whch seems like a really stupid lawsuit if you ask me, it might make sense. Of course then we can really see how much (or little) money that the iTMS makes. Apple would not be able to pad the iTMS financial data with sales of iPods. Oh no!