Fortune is reporting on the anticipation of today’s expected Copyright Royalty Board ruling which will decide whether music publishers should receive a whopping 15 cents per digital track sold as opposed to the 9 cents they receive now. Seemingly minuscule figures until you realize that Apple expects to sell 2.4 billion songs through iTunes this year and the publishers are asking for a 66% increase in their cut. Y’know, for the musicians who are making the music and all.

Apple has essentially said they will shut down the iTunes store should this decision not go their way. Vice President of iTunes, Eddy Cue:

“Apple has repeatedly made it clear that it is in this business to make money, and most likely would not continue to operate [the iTunes music store] if it were no longer possible to do so profitably.”

Obviously this isn’t going to happen, but more importantly, where are these billions of purchases coming from? Surely it’s not college students, who I’d like to think have realized by now that music is free. Are we buying digital music? And if so, why? Enlighten me.