apple steals music?

In a spoof of the apple website (soon to be cease and desisted, I'm sure) Downhillbattle makes the claim that iTunes is just another fancy packaging on a corrupt music industry.

The site goes on:

If you build a shiny new house on a landfill it still stinks

Apple says iTunes is "better than free" because it's "fair to artists and record companies." That's simply not true. First of all, Apple gets 3 times as much money as musicians from each sale. Apple takes a 35% cut from every song and every album sold, a huge amount considering how little they have to do. Record labels receive the other 65% of each sale. Of this, major label artists will end up with only 8 to 14 cents per song, depending on their contract. Many of them will never even see this paltry share because they have to pay for producers and recording costs, both of which can be enormous. Until the musician "recoups" these costs, when you buy an iTunes song, the label gives them nothing.