iTunes Might Lose Labels 614
Dreamwalkerofyore writes "According to the New York Times, the iTunes music store might have to change its 99 cents per song policy or risk losing a huge amount of songs due to recent disputes with record companies, who demand an increase in the cost. From the article: 'If [Mr. Jobs] loses, the one-price model that iTunes has adopted 99 cents to download any song could be replaced with a more complex structure that prices songs by popularity. A hot new single, for example, could sell for $1.49, while a golden oldie could go for substantially less than 99 cents.'"
great! (Score:5, Insightful)
might change that 'it's new - it must be good' thingy people have in their heads..
Re:great! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:great! (Score:5, Insightful)
better stick with web radios
Re:great! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:great! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:great! (Score:3, Interesting)
Some of my favorite oldies are not available as singles but rather only the album -- usually $9.99. I have bought a couple of albums because it was still cheaper than buying a CD. As an example, American Pie by Don McLean. A great album of the early 70's (yeah, I'm old)
There are some other oldies I'd like to have but I won't pay for the album because the rest of the songs were garbage.
Re:great! (Score:5, Interesting)
I have bought a couple of albums because it was still cheaper than buying a CD. As an example, American Pie by Don McLean. A great album of the early 70's (yeah, I'm old)
Great! Really. Except that it should be in the public domain by now. Like most of the music I listen to these days. So you bought stuff. Great! Now watch me not pay for stuff that should be free decades ago.
It seems the **AAs are succesfully wiping the notion of a public domain from people minds.
Re:great! (Score:3, Interesting)
Copyrights are to be for a limitied time according to the constitution. The big rich content companies have purchased enough of our legislators to extend that time to almost eternal. The purpose of copyrights and patents was not primarily to make creators of content wealthy, but to help the entire country by it. The artists usually get the smallest part of the money that the consumers pay for the material, jus
Re:great! (Score:5, Interesting)
As you may or may not have noticed, I never said artists shouldn't get paid. However the point off copyright isn't that artists should be able to live indefinitely of whatever they create.
Copyright is a legal construct, an artificial monopoly which provides artists a incentive to create, which in turn was meant to benefit society by making society richer (ie the public domain).
Are you going to tell me that Beatles, Miles Davis or whoever weren't going to make that music anyway, if they knew that they would "only" be able to profit from it, say, 35 years? You got to be kidding. If I could strike any deal like that for anything I did, I'd sign up before you could say "showtime".
Had todays copyright regime existed in the time of Beethoven, Bach or Wagner we would have never heard about them at all, as they'd be copyrighted into oblivion. Now we can all enjoy them instead, as they belong to the public. As it should be.
Can you please tell me exactly what copyrighted material has entered the public domain since the creation of Mickey Mouse? Which incidently was based on Steamboat Willie, which incidently also was copyrighted, but happened to have entered the public domain.
Had it not been for the public domain, Disney would never have existed today, nor would your dear Mickey Mouse. Copyright is granted with the intent that the copyrighted material should in the end belong to society. It's simple. There's supposed to be a balance. Now there is not.
With the de-facto end of the public domain, watch me no longer respecting the artifical construct that copyright is.
Re:great! (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh, you mean like the Disney lawyers? Or Disney itself, which based most of its movies on public domain material?
You take some, and you put some back in. That's the way it works. The parasites are the people who don't want to pay back their debts...ever!
Re:great! (Score:5, Insightful)
So while it's easy to see the record companies' points, they fall down under any scrutiny. It comes down to "what price will the market bear?"
And if they want more for the more popular songs, they will quickly find those songs less popular.
Which will be fine for the record companies, because they'd rather you buy out of their catalog so that they can tell new artists, "Sorry, kid, you don't sell," and screw them out of royalties, fame and etc. They may then go on to blame P2P for the failure of new artists.
You'll find Muddy Waters really cheap, though, because the record companies always owned all of his rights.
Re:great! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:great! (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps increased demand should lead to higher prices...but then, if we're pricing music based on supply and demand, then the nearly infinite "supply" of digital music should make it damn near free.
I guess could agree that music should be priced at what the public is willing to pay, based on demand. But continued piracy of music online shows that even at 99 cents a song, much of the public feels that price is too high. One would argue that it's hard to compete with somebody giving away your product for free, but at the same time I really do feel there is a price point at which a vast majority of people would choose the legitimate market over the black market. I just don't think the record labels have dipped that low yet, and I know they don't want to.
Really, the quality of the product being given away for free is also much lower than what is being sold. I'm more than willing to give up good money to have a physical disc, at full audio quality, that I can re-rip should I lose my files. I like liner notes. Hell, I even think buying a full album on iTunes has some value...such as knowing that the entire CD will have been ripped at the same quality, with accurate and consistant tags without my having to take the time to do/fix it myself.
But is the physical CD worth $14.99 to me? Is the "virtual" CD worth $11.99 or $12.99 (the price the labels seem to be pushing for full albums on iTunes, compared to the original $9.99)? No.
For sake of argument, my personal price point would be more like $9.99 for physical CD's (and I'm not talking old/surplus stuff) and $6.99 or $7.99 for whole album downloads. $0.99 a song actually doesn't bother me, as for many CD's it would be saving me about ten bucks, as there is often only one song I want. Do the labels want to try these price points? Hell no. They'd argue that they cannot possibly make money at those levels.
At which point I would pull out a tape of MTV Cribs, which to me is absolute proof there is some room to lower prices. And that's just what artists pull in...I also know that there aren't many record execs driving Civics.
That's EXACTLY the way they operate. (Score:3, Interesting)
Corporate culture also screws things up for artists with the enshrining of the artist as a 'bitch-god(ess)' with whom its never about what its explicitely about (or some such clap trap.) This way they can keep up the mystery around the industry.
Satch'mo never went for it and, being black, they never went for him, 'cause he was just a dope smokin' 'nigger' and would never amount to m
Re:great! (Score:4, Insightful)
I was talking about how they justify the different pricing. And simply pointed out that supply and demand isn't their reason.
They also are not suggesting some sort of popularity model -- songs that sell X number of times per day cost $1.50, Y sales are $1, Z sales are $0.50 -- I could see that. That would be entirely popularity-based pricing, perhaps something like the stock exchange (roughly; don't think about it too much). That pricing might not be a bad idea, actually.
But it would freak out the record companies, because they don't want popular things to be more expensive. They want the things that they market heavily to be more expensive. That's the model that they are familiar with and one that they know works.
Apple, however, has completely changed everything about their economic model. Nothing makes sense to the recording industry anymore. There aren't any DJs to buy off with payolla, there aren't any record store chains to give under-the-table kickbacks to -- everything is above the board, and they don't even control the distribution channels.
The record companies want to guarantee hits. They want to control prices so that you are either buying (a) something that they've put a lot of money into at a high price or (b) something that has been sold at a high price for years and is nothing but pure profit. Hits or classics. Expensive or cheap.
But they don't want you buying independent music -- certainly not independent music that costs exactly the same as the stuff they've pumped millions into to convince you to buy.
Which begs to question why they are pumping all this money into promoting these artists if they can't guarantee a certain amount of profit.
But they're finding that when they put their heavily marketed tracks up on iTunes then they lose control. You've got classic music records from 1996 by Telrac Records right between "The Who Sings My Generation" and U2's "How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb"; D.L. Menard's "Cajun Saturday Night" on Rounder Records in with Justin Timberlake and Travis. If Apple is selling that placement (and it wouldn't be too hard to convince me with the Timberlake appearance), it's certainly diluted.
There are five major labels -- Universal, EMI, BMG, Warner and Sony -- who own nearly everything.
The current new releases are Trick Pony (Curb->MCI->Universal); Craig David (Warner->Atlantic); The Flaming Lips (Warner Bros.); and Crazy Hits by Crazy Frog on Mach 1 Records Gmbh, which is owned by Ministry of Sound, which is definitely not one of the big five.
It's also at the bottom of today's top 10 album list. Coincidence? No.
Apple doesn't care because Apple just sells whatever people want for $1. But the record companies must be livid. Yes, they have 1-9, but they're used to having 1-100. And you can be damn sure they want more money for their efforts. (Though in the end, it will just do more for Crazy Frog.)
The real economics at work here is "Seller sets the price, buyer decides if it's too much." And we have two sellers who 1) disagree about how buyers will react and 2) have completely different motivations toward selling.
Apple thinks buyers will baulk on all sales if some are weirdly more expensive and want to keep everyone using iTunes to sell the most music to the most people. The record companies want more money for their product and don't care if they sell it through stores or iTunes or beam it directly into your head as you sleep (which they may already be doing) as long as they get the most money out of it.
So there you are.
Notice also that these models also never once involve the artists directly, even though one would hope that they did all the real work.
Great! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Great! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Great! (Score:2)
Nah.
Include more indies (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems to me that the primary problem with the music industry is the history of price fixing.
Re:Include more indies (Score:5, Interesting)
That, and the trend for albums to contain 2-3 good songs (at most) and a load of filler crap. Why would anyone want to buy an album like that?
I heard an interview with Jay Kay of Jamiroquai talking about the way the trend towards downloading means fans are buying individual tracks at a time rather than whole albums, which is forcing them and other artists to spend more time on the "other" tracks on their albums to make sure they're up to scratch. If this is the case (more people downloading = higher quality music), then great! And if we can get it for less than $0.99 even better!
Let's hope it's really true and not just words...
Filler Crap (Score:3, Interesting)
Most the time it is just filler crap.
Personally, I want a low enough price per song so I can afford to get the less popular tracks. As it stands, I've downloaded one iTunes songs so that I san say I downloaded an iTunes song. As it stands, I am priced o
Re:Variable price != lower price (Score:5, Insightful)
If varible prices led to an open market with artists competing on price, then variable prices would like lead to a drop in price.
There are several big ifs in the equation.
Our first big if is the assumption that the prices would have a decent minimum that is near the price of delivering the music. The second big if is the assumption that rights to music is held in enough hands that there will actually be pricing pressure. Right now, the big music collections are owned by a few mega corporations.
You are complete right. If Apple has a pricing structure that sets $.99 as a minimum, then we would see a big jump in price.
Re:Great! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Great! (Score:2)
Re:Great! (Score:5, Insightful)
It's quite simple when you think about it: They are not demanding higher prices to discourage buyers from getting the popular tunes and steer them to obscure songs. They're asking for more because they want a net gain. Guess who's going to pay for that. The low end will have to pay for the reduced number of sales of high priced songs, so the price range for anything above garage band level is going to go from $0.99 to $1.49. The few songs which will sell for less you could probably get for free from a crappy website where a rightfully starving artist put them in a hopeless promotion attempt.
Re:Great! (Score:5, Insightful)
This is about prices going UP.
And considering they already nearly match the price of an actual CD (without cover, case, physical medium, and at a lower quality with DRM to boot)) it's an incredibly bad deal for the consumer. But hey, it's convenient right?
Yeah well (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Yeah well (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course, they'll be absolutely convinced the price is too low. How many morons downloaded the Crazy Frog ringtone at a significantly higher price than 99 cents? They want to go back to gouging the customers and giving kickbacks to corrupt legislators to take your house off you for petty copyright infringement.
Honestly, someone give me a google map for the RIAA headquarters. I've got my Illudium Q36 explosive space modulator somewhere around here and a strong urge to use it.
Re:Yeah well (Score:5, Insightful)
If they're really lucky, these record labels won't see a further drop in their CD sales. Plus they won't have the revenue stream from Apple anymore. They'll come crawling back in no time.
Wow (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Wow (Score:5, Informative)
How is Apple to blame? According to the article summary (can't see actual article) Apple is fighting to protect it's current model, and may be forced to (or to lose a large chunk of it's inventory). I'd hardly say Apple is to blame for that.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Interesting)
"$0.99 a song is no longer possible due to the rampant greed from BMG,SONY and other record labels."
it works we do it all the time in the cable industry. Discovery tried to increase their rates to us and force us to carry some more of their crap channels.. we said no, they pulled our encryption key so we replaced discovery with a screen that said "discovery wants to raise your cable rates, we said no and rthey pulled the plug, call 888-888-8888 and tell them what you think."
we were down 5 days on that channel before they agreed to make the calls stop.
the record companies are making HUGE profits at the $0.99 pricing. they just wnat in on this price gouging that the oil companies are enjoying right now.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
The cable company story doesn't really seem comparable. Cable companies have a lot of leverage on content and it is a hassle for people to switch cable companies. However, it is very easy for people to buy music from a different store than iTMS.
Apple does not have monopsony power.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
I can just see the RIAA, overcome with jealousy over OPEC, arranging a Music shortage. Prices going to $60 an album, people waiting in giant lines at record stores just to pick up a new Black Eyed Peas album. People avoiding playing music while driving to work because it's a precious commodity, while the record industry rakes in profit. Network news would alternately go nuts about how apocalyptic it is, then reassure people that it actually isn't the highest price peralbum ever when adjusted for inflation, informing us that people used to pay more for wax cylinders that could barely hold a song. Then the record industry would graciously recieve generous subsidies from the US government as part of a giant omnibus Music bill. Politicians will promise to help reduce America's dependance on foreign music, and to help keep the chart hits American.
Then we'll invade France to take control of Khaled and his snappy North African pop beats.
Re:Wow (Score:3, Insightful)
Instead, they'll rely on the rumor mill and their fanbase to do it for them. There's a reason we're reading this in the Times and not on apple.com.
Re:Wow (Score:3, Insightful)
I wonder who leaked this story to the NYT?
It does put Apple in a better position for the coming negotiations, doesn't it. Seems to me Apple are playing exactly the game that you've outlined, in advance. You may recall similar stories about possible price rises last year.
This way lies badness... (Score:3, Insightful)
The magic of the $0.99 is that its magnitude and uniformity places it on that mental shelf reserved for things nobody will bother to steal. But, if Apple starts making some nothings "more equal" than others, then that shelf and mindset become endangered...
$99 wont last forever (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:$99 wont last forever (Score:3, Funny)
Geeeze (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Geeeze (Score:2, Insightful)
To be fair to us Americans (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:To be fair to us Americans (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think this has much of anything to do with actual profit by the labels. They're making plenty right now, and growing plenty simply by virtue of increased volume. This is a power play. This is the industry telling Apple, "We own you, we don't need you. You do what WE say."
Basically, since they can't compete with Apple in digital distribution individually, they are colluding to strong-arm Apple and will likely run iTMS into the ground eventually. I think laws are being broken here, but I don't expect anything to be done about it.
Re:Geeeze (Score:2)
It was only a matter of time (Score:2)
Do they already support independant artists (and I mean more then a token amount)? If so, then that's great. I hadn't heard.
Re:It was only a matter of time (Score:5, Informative)
Re:It was only a matter of time (Score:5, Interesting)
(yes, i am totally shameless: http://www.meetgoodwin.com/ [meetgoodwin.com]
Re:It was only a matter of time (Score:3, Insightful)
Pretty much no band is big enough to get Apple's attention by themselves. Bands on major labels have to heft of their labels to get them attention -- if not individual attention, then at least the attention that comes from being part of an established catalog.
Luckily for indie bands and labels (my shameless plug: http://www.loud-devices.com/ [loud-devices.com]) all the bands for which CDBaby [cdbaby.com] acts as "online distibutor" together constitute quite a formidable alternative catalog.
One has to wonder: if the major labels do s
Re:It was only a matter of time (Score:3, Insightful)
Why do people have to be so incredibly cheap? This is just insane.
Not only does CD Baby do the above, but they actually have a human being listen to the files to ensure that they didn't get messed up, and to set up the "sounds like" links. You are easily getting a couple hours worth of work for $3
"Its," damn it! (Score:2, Informative)
Re:"Its," damn it! (Score:5, Funny)
Your fighting a loosing battle. Its impossible to win when most of Slashdot doesnt' even have a basic grasp of english to good. Chose you're battles wisely...
Re:"Its," damn it! (Score:2)
No.
Re:"Its," damn it! (Score:2)
Re:"Its," damn it! (Score:2)
$0.99? Yeah, right. (Score:5, Insightful)
Greed, greed, greed... (Score:5, Insightful)
I really LIKE iTunes, and I *KNOW* how to steal music if I want to. I really LIKE the fact that I can buy a specific song for a pittance on a whim instead of hoping someone will upload it to the Usenet.
It's not that $1.49 is too much, but it just shows that they will try to reach a price that people will accept, however grudgingly. But the $1 mark is a psychological barrier; once they reach that, people will start to think, "Is this song worth $1.49?" and might not buy it after all.
In any case, good luck to 'em. I don't buy any new stuff anyway. Most of it is crap pushed by the payola artists.
Re:Greed, greed, greed... (Score:5, Funny)
Greedy bastards (Score:5, Insightful)
The record labels pretty much killed CDs by charging 20 bucks each for them, now they'll kill this outlet as well.
iTunes monopoly (Score:3, Interesting)
You can't sell it any other way, it's true that there are freely usable DRM formats that are supported by every portable player other than iPod. Unfortunately, iPod has 90%+ of the market share, and for DRM it only supports Fairplay.
Sorry that people don't realize it, but independent musicians are screwed because they cant sell protected songs for the price they want.
But whatever, people will never ever see anything wrong in anything Apple does.
Even Microsoft's DRM format is more open than Apple's!
Re:iTunes monopoly (Score:2, Interesting)
Frankly, no DRM is much better than any DRM... especially considering most DRM can be circumvented very easily. But I can see how not using DRM would be frightening for an independant artist. You're potentially giving away all your work, and you've got no income from albums, etc.
That said, is there no way to create your own Apple DRM'd songs? None at all? Do most independant artists rely on DRM, or are they more reliant on a small gro
Re:iTunes monopoly (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:iTunes monopoly (Score:4, Interesting)
iTunes
Music Match
MusicNet
Music Now
Audio Lunchbox
DownloadPunk
Downrip
Sony Connect
So, if you think iTunes is the only choice for independent labels, it's your own fault for not seeking alternatives. And no, iTunes is not the biggest seller for all of our labels.
Re:iTunes monopoly (Score:3, Insightful)
Microsoft chooses to license its DRM format to mp3 player manufactirers, because it's not in the mp3 player business. Apple chooses to make its DRM work on a non-Apple OS, because non-Apple OSs dominate the market. (And both are licensing their DRM to cell phone companies, as neither is in the cell phone business.)
this news reads: (Score:5, Funny)
About time! (Score:2)
I'm also all for experimenting to find a good price point. "Simple and uniform pricing" is only good if you actually have the right price. 99c a song is still way overpriced for most of the catalog, and I think they'll find that they'd make more money around 75c or 50c than they do now. With classical music, this is parti
Add me (Score:2, Interesting)
Looks like I'll be sticking for P2P. And, despite what the RIAA says, I tend to buy the album if I really like it.
Automatic Pricing System (Score:2, Interesting)
That way, the really popular songs (as decided by the users themselves) would inflate in price and the more obscure songs will lower in price, which could give them more exposure which may then raise the price back up.
This could work well if Apple would expose the syste
Re:Automatic Pricing System (Score:3)
You're incorrect--what the record company will do is bill the artist for this as a "marketing expense" thus it really DOES cost them nothing.
Ignores the long tail... (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course, this could be their goal: to make iTunes less profitable and drive them out of business, then swoop in and offer a different service... Or maybe they want to make iTunes less profitible in order to drive music consumers back to purcashing CDs... ??? </conspiracy_theory>
Re:Ignores the long tail... (Score:4, Insightful)
Nah... You just need to realize that the "could go for substantially less" part of the deal means maybe all the way down to $0.95. They threw that in there to make the idea more palatable, but in practice, it won't happen that way.
Also, consider that even a slight reduction could end up boosting sales of such material, in the same way that otherwise slow-selling unknowns fly out of the cutout/discount bin at any local music store... We might agonize over whether or not to buy a decent new release at $18.99, but we'll throw away a $50 without blinking on $5-$10 discs we've never heard of.
The price is already $1.42 for me (Score:3, Informative)
AllOfMp3 (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm still waiting for the day when the general population knows about sites like AllOfMp3, where you can download an entire album in just about every popular format for around a dollar. You can even preview an entire album before purchasing, and the selection is pretty decent. Not as good as iTunes, but probably enough to satisfy a good chuck of iTMS users.
And given all this, the record companies want to make themselves look worse? Hilarious! Let them!
Re:AllOfMp3 (Score:3, Informative)
Last month the International Federation of the Phonographic Industries (IFPI) urged Russian authorities to take action against AllofMP3.com.
But Moscow prosecutors will not take legal action because Russian copyright laws do not cover digital media, according to news agency Tass.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Same old story (Score:5, Interesting)
They have found the sweet spot in the market and simply collect the checks. But the corprate mantra of constantly growing profits has taken over. Which is not a bad thing, but it should have manifested itself in the recruitment of new musicians, not the raising of prices for the hell of it. That of course, would take effort, and when you make more money off of an album than the artist does - after you have merely loaned them the money to make their next album - you get used to screwing people over as much as you can.
If banks worked like the music industry, you would pay 90% of your paycheck to whatever bank gave you a student loan 20 years ago - 15 years after they were paid off.
Idiots (Score:5, Funny)
Variable pricing would work for me (Score:2)
Greed (Score:2)
Why does every corporaton on the planet need to kill the golden goose when its found?
The labels are taking a gamble (Score:2)
However they're bluffing with Apple and everyone knows they've got the lower hand.
Idiots are kind of cute, like watching a kid learning to walk.
John Cage and 4'33"" (Score:2)
Which performance? (Score:3, Funny)
Which one does iTunes sell?
what about walmart? (Score:2)
I think the Record companies are trying to torpedo Apple so that tehy can use the WMA stuff which is highly unpopular despite Windows dominance.
Albums vs. single songs (Score:3, Insightful)
Dang it (Score:5, Funny)
Please help us think of ways to blame this on piracy. We're really stuck on this one!
Sincerely,
The RIAA
Gas prices (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, wait. Nevermind. Yeah, they're just jerks.
doesn't surprise me (Score:3, Insightful)
Apple is the WalMart of Music Downloads (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Apple is the WalMart of Music Downloads (Score:5, Funny)
remember that they can track sales. (Score:5, Interesting)
Replace the 'hot new hits' smokescreen with 'anything that's actually popular' and you have what the music industry actually wants. Does 'Highway to Hell' get more action than the latest push-the-star album? No problem.. that song gets a price hike.
It leads to a state of smoke and mirrors, where all the songs that sell less than one copy a month are $.50, anything that actually has an audience is $.99, and anything getting more traffic than normal, for any reason, gets kicked up to $1.99. Even more heinous, but technically feasible, would be per-user and related-hits tracking, so if you buy a $.50 song, all the 'other songs purchased by people who bought this one' go up to $.99 for you personally. In such a system, the only way to get the low prices consistently would be to buy random selections of stuff nobody else wants.
It's a great dodge, from a marketing standpoint. The labels can come out and say that 99% of the music in the iTMS catalog is listed below $.99, while quietly failing to mention that 90% of the actual purchases were at $.99 or more. Then they can wring their hands and claim that those "few" premium-priced songs are the only place they make a profit, and that anyone who wants to take away that price tier is just a nasty mean corpse-raping villain.
Personally, I'm amused that the labels are willing to play chicken with a company that recently announced a major change in its hardware platform. Apple (or Steve Jobs) certainly has the nerve to tell one of the big labels to take a hike if necessary, and it's not like the market is just flooded with other venues where the labels can peddle their goods.
The game theory of the situation is interesting.. if all the labels bailed at once, it would hurt Apple a lot. But if only a few labels leave, the ones that stay will probably do better business, since they'll have less competition. The more labels that go, the better the advantages for the few that stay. So basically, all the labels are in a position where they want someone *else* to sacrifice profits and teach Apple a lesson, while they personally stick around and glean the benefits of both the smackdown and reduced competition. But nobody wants to be the hero who dies for the good of everyone else.
All told, I hope.. and expect.. that Apple will stick to its guns on simple, flat pricing.
Re:remember that they can track sales. (Score:3, Insightful)
"Hey, man, check out this song being only 50 cents on iTunes!"
"What? It's $1.50 for me!"
Followed by a weblog post 5 minutes later. Followed by media attention and horrible PR.
A Cent Sign (Score:5, Informative)
On a Mac, press Alt + 4.
Re:A Cent Sign (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:A Cent Sign (Score:3, Insightful)
Ask a Windows user, and either they have no idea, or they have to open Word and use the character palette, or else an international key
WalMart is at 88 cents per song. (Score:5, Informative)
"The labels price things based on what they believe they can get -- a pricing philosophy a lot of industries have. But we like to price things as cheaply as we possibly can, rather than charge as much as we can get. It's a big difference in philosophy, and we try to help other people see that." - WalMart senior VP (entertainment) Gary Severson.
WalMart pushed the labels into a $9.97 retail price for CDs. Then they started signing deals with artists on their own. WalMart now has exclusive rights to Garth Brooks.
It's hard to cheer for either side here. But from the music industry's perspective, WalMart is scarier than Apple. Apple needs the music industry. For WalMart, audio CDs are a minor business. WalMart sometimes threatens to cut back on audio CDs and devote more shelf space to DVDs and games. And Apple doesn't care about content. WalMart imposes censorship on both music and cover art.
Priceless ! (Score:5, Funny)
Kazaa: Free
Sticking it to the screw-the-buyer record companies once again: PRICELESS!
Turn you over to shake out that last penny (Score:4, Informative)
At the price of 99 cents a song, the share of the major labels is about 70 cents
Apple needs to get their profits from the iPod, since most of the 99 cents is already going back to the record companies. What's so hard about this for the NYT to understand?
The other main battleground in Apple's coming confrontation with the industry has to do with "interoperability" of services and devices. Mr. Jobs has so far refused to make the iTunes software compatible with music players from other manufacturers, and he has prevented the iPod from accepting music sold from competing services that use a Microsoft-designed music format. As a result, songs purchased from Napster, for example, will not play on an iPod.
Ah, now we know the real reason why Sony is unhappy. Won't play on Sony players either.
Labels like Sony don't get it. (Score:3, Insightful)
If they force a different pricing model with higher prices, I will pirate my music.
I have purchased 201.78 CAD (168.87 USD) since the opening of iTMS in Canada.
Before iTMS, I would buy a CD per year at the most. Most years, I would not buy any music. I'm not interested in complicated prices models, differing DRM rights per song or subscription services.
I'm a mac user and none of the other services support my platform and music player. I don't blame Apple for that at all but rather MSFT and their desire to trap everyone on windows.
Great! No new music... (Score:3, Insightful)
'Popular', meaning the latest 'artiste du jour' that they're warping into their 'sound', ripping off by making 'em pay for the studio time, the recording tame and material, the 'pressing' facilities, the 'cover art' and the promotion.
They're committing an internet suicide. You can't seriously do this without a broadcaster (and payola) structure. The buzz of an internet is completely counter to this.
When you (and I) can record, produce, publish and promote music at little or no cost, it makes no sense to go with a label.
This will mean the death of the ASCAP who will hate to start tracking playtime by song on an hourly cycle. And with an iPod shifting time, the results won't mean a thing anyway.
These **AA guys just love to shave by holding the straight edge razor against their necks and pressing down HARD.
They fuck up iTunes and I can predict their death as coming quite rapidly.
I can just see the ITMS front page:
"No non-indie songs anymore because the 'major' labels don't want to sell through us unless they can impose some nonsensical pay scales on us.
Indie music for sale at $.99 a pop."
Re:For me... (Score:2)
Most bands are happy about their songs being on the net, it makes the band more widely known. The bigger bands are already rich enough.
Re:Lost a customer (Score:3, Insightful)
Pffft, they don't care about you. You're most likely too educated for them anyway. They want impulse buyers, not those who actually care about copyright. Their war on p2p is merely: 1. another revenue source, or
2. a publicity stunt, or
3. a lever to pressure their congressmen into creating more draconian laws, or
4. to reduce the "cool" effect (with questionable success) of p2p, or
5. an effort to shame some downloaders into buying the music th