Apple CEO Steve Jobs indicated Wednesday that he’s unlikely to give in to calls from the music industry to add a subscription-based model to iTunes.

“Never say never, but customers don’t seem to be interested in it,” Jobs told Reuters in an interview after Apple reported blow-out quarterly results. “The subscription model has failed so far.”

Many in the music industry hope iTunes will ultimately rent music online. But Jobs said he had seen little consumer demand for that.

“People want to own their music,” he said.

At this point, Apple appears to have the upper hand. Analysts expect Apple to push for concessions from record companies on selling music without copy-protection. Earlier in the year, Apple and EMI announced plans to offer DRM-free digital music downloads.

“There are a lot of people in the other music companies who are very intrigued by it,” said Jobs. “They’re thinking very hard about it right now.”

“We’ve said by the end of this year, over half of the songs we offer on iTunes we believe will be in DRM-free versions,” Jobs said. “I think we’re going to achieve that.”