2000s in the music industry Inc.), who surpassed Wal-Mart to become the US’s largest music retailer in April 2008. Sector leaders include: Many hundreds more stores operate worldwide, often prominent only in particular countries or specialist genres. A third kind of operator never retails directly to the public, instead offering branded whitelabel stores and portals for organisations including bricks-and-mortar music stores, mobile telephony operators and ISPs. Some services which initially only offered streaming of tracks now also offer a-la-carte downloads, either through third parties (e.g. Spotify) or fully integrated (Deezer, Juno Digital, Rhapsody etc.). In 2009 "Rolling Stone" reported a price war between iTunes and
Build–operate–transfer Build–operate–transfer Build–operate–transfer (BOT) or build–own–operate–transfer (BOOT) is a form of project financing, wherein a private entity receives a concession from the private or public sector to finance, design, construct, own, and operate a facility stated in the concession contract. This enables the project proponent to recover its investment, operating and maintenance expenses in the project. Due to the long-term nature of the arrangement, the fees are usually raised during the concession period. The rate of increase is often tied to a combination of internal and external variables, allowing the proponent to reach a satisfactory internal rate of return for its