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Record Labels Push for iTunes Price Hike
csteinle writes "Looks like the major labels are getting their own way again. The New York Post reports that the price per track may be going up to $1.25, while the per album price for some albums could go as high as $16.99. The Register has its own take on this, too. Aren't you glad you starting paying for downloaded music?" Update: 05/07 19:15 GMT by M : Apple says their prices won't increase.
Ok... I understand why the RIAA wants to make more money off each track. There are only two or three good tracks on each CD. But to jack some prices up over what most new CDs are sold for in stores? How does that make any sense at all?
It's so fucking stupid that I want to rip my nuts off, cook them, and then eat them. Note to RIAA: YOU ARE A BUNCH OF FUCKING IDIOTS. God... I just can't stand it. They're begging for us to pay for music. Some people do. Now they want more money from those people while giving them less than they would by buying the CD in the store.
Casual Games/Downloads
Apple's willingness to allow some singles to be priced higher than 99 cents indicates the company feels empowered by its current success in the download market and sees a chance to boost profits from the sales of digital music.
This does NOT mean anything of the sort. It means that if Apple wants to sell these songs on its online store it has to bow to the wishes of the music cartels. It's their music afterall.
You know, I have downloaded less than 10 songs since the height of the Napster/Kazaa days (2000/2001?) and the rest have been songs that are legally available for free. Why the hell are we bothering to support the cartel's music? You realize that they are going to keep pushing and pushing (with bait-and-switch if necessary) to keep online downloads out so that they can reign supreme in the sales of music.
Support only the artists that allow the free taping and distribution of their music! Do NOT let the cartels continue to dictate to you and your favorite artists how the music you love will be distributed and at what cost.
Every time I hear about record labels these days I'm forced to think about the indies, who create the best music and get paid the least. My only hope is that a site like mp3.com will learn from the mistakes of mp3.com and come up with a solution for indies to profit and truly compete against big labels with more even footing. Nobody likes a grudge match like I do. :-)
Bait and switch concepts always fail business, and it looks like Apple will have to cave to the pressure from groups like the RIAA (who happen to be in love with shady business practices). Drug dealers do the same thing; $0.99 for the first hit and then you get gouged when you're hooked! Maybe taco was right after all?!?
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
If i *knew* that money was going to the artists, i'd be okay with it. Since i know it's not, fuck 'em; i won't buy. Free streams are doing just fine for me.
Fine -- they can have it their way. The $.99 model was working fairly well, and a decent number of people were actually entertaining the notion of paying for music. This development will prove, yet again, that greed is running this show -- not fairness.
Until there is a "fair" alternative, meaning it's accepted as fair to the majority of open-minded and reasonable people, we will continue to see a well-defined, concerted effort to make music available for free.
iTunes was a step forward, and this represents 3 steps backward. It's a slap in the face to those who were actually paying for what was available for free. Expect them to be punished severely, in the form of greatly increased P2P activity.
dmiessler.com -- grep understanding knowledge
When are the record labels going to understand that their product isn't worth what they want to charge?
It's like the NBA - a big marketing scheme where the underlying product does not have the appeal nor the value their pushers would like us to assign...
And it's not just dumb because they're making the price higher, but they're making the EASILY COPYABLE audio CD format competetive again!
I mean what the crap? On one hand they're trying to secure their intellectual property, and on the other they're deterring people from a format that secures their intellectual property with out-of-whack pricing?
Dumbasses! This is a strategic blunder, how do they not see it? In a weird turn of the tables, I'm mad about it because they're so obviously proliferating a problem they're trying to solve.
I should be happy, because it means the long life of easily "shareable" audio CDs, but somehow I'm not..
-- The unsig...
I get the feeling that Apple really didn't want this to happen. Raising the prices reduces the "deal" of downloading the album. As others have pointed out, why pay 16 bucks for an encrypted, DRM'd copy of an album that you have restricted rights to; when for 18 dollars you can have a CD that you can do what ever to. Steve Jobs and Co. probably only agreed to this out of fear of losing the rights to distribute music. While selling music online helps the RIAA, it does not do so enough for Apple to really leverage their position on the pricing. From the vantage point of Apple, they need the RIAA more than the RIAA needs them.
Slashdot...it's like Fox news, but without the biased sl...or maybe not.
Alright here's a conspiracy theory. Sony could be the reason behind the hike. New player enters a market dominated by apple and apple's price per song increases? I bet sony would remain at 99c and isn't sony a major music label? Also Ipods were the main target of apple not pusing songs so i guess they won't care much now.
really, the best route for anyone wanting to listen to music is to stick to more independent material--there's enough good stuff out there to last you several lifetimes.
that way, when you buy a song from Magnatune, Bleep, or Audiolunchbox, you WON'T be:
1.) sending your cash to the RIAA
2.) attributing to the success of a service that fronts the RIAA, supporting the operation of tyrannous record labels with your cash
3.) supporting propietary DRM
4.) locking yourself into using iTunes or an iPod as your portable player
by opting for other services that aren't iTunes/Walmart/Sony/Rhapsody/etc.., you WILL be:
1.) sending more cash to the musicians you like
2.) attributing to the success of a service that better represents and compensates the musicians you like, without restricting how you listen to your music
3.) free to listen to your music however you want, whether it be with winamp or foobar, linux or whatever OS you use, ipod or rio karma
Basically destroys the whole purpose of the service, doesn't it?
What makes you so sure that isn't the RIAA's goal? The brick-and-mortar model is easier for the RIAA to exert control over, and the iTMS is exposing people to independent music that maybe they would have had a difficult time finding otherwise. Maybe the RIAA thinks its in their best interest to kill off online music and then go "see, online music doesn't work".
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Well, I certainly won't be. I've spent a bit over $100 at the iTMS since it opened and, generally, have been pretty happy. At $0.99 per track, I've even been willing to experiment and give new artists a chance.
If it goes to $1.25 per track, that's going to cause my purchasing to drop off considerable. Once again, greed's running the show at the RIAA, and once again, they're executing Operation: Footbullet faster and better than anyone.
Want to complain to the top? Try dropping an email to sjobs@apple.com.
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They're digging their own graves. Let them.
sulli
RTFJ.
Isnt' this obviously illegal? In America price-setting cartels were outlawed after the era of oil, steel, and railroad monopolies. The i-tunes customers should contact the justice department. What is this russia?
The RIAA loves the new Napster, or at least, part of it. For those who aren't quite familiar with how the service works, users pay a monthly fee to subscribe to Napster. Then, based on the preferences of the copyright holder, users can either stream or download tracks for a one-time fee. Once the fee is paid, the user can listen to the song as many times as they want, but only downloaded songs can be loaded onto mp3 players, etc. for use away from the computer.
The rub, of course, is that if a subscriber stop paying Napster a monthly subscription fee, she loses access to the music streams she's already paid for. It's brilliant, because in the end, the consumer gets nothing for their dollar but instant gratification. No file, no archived recording, just the experience of having heard Outkast encouraging them to "shake it like a Polaroid picture" to file away in their memory.
The RIAA adores this. It makes them happy like dogs rolling in some particularly nasty filth. They look out and see the incredible use statistics counting the users of p2p and iTunes, and they start multiplying subscription fees on top of those numbers. It's the best deal possible for them, because they manage to make money by selling us no real assets.
But iTunes style stores, where users are given individual copies of songs to keep and own, and use in perpetuity for a one-time fee? The RIAA hates this. It makes them sad, like a pet owner discovering that his dog has rolled in some particularly nasty filth. Instead of a recurring revenue stream that's locked into continuing to pay for the RIAA's existing products for life, each consumer instead is a fair deal. They get songs for a low one-time fee, they're able to get their music a la carte without having to buy dozens of filler tracks, and they're still offered the instant gratification that is the only real selling point the streaming model has to offer. The RIAA, in turn, is forced to continue producing new product at a high enough quality that they can continue to sell it to customers.
Once you understand this, it's easy to see what the RIAA is doing: They're trying to shut down iTunes.
By raising the cost of songs to $1.25, they're breaking the magic $1 price point. Anything under a buck, well hell, that's just a candy bar. Why not buy it? But $1.25, that's a 20oz. bottle of soda, a purchase that must be considered a little more carefully. They've broken the psychological barrier to impulse purchases that $.99 magically hovers below.
By raising the price of full albums on iTunes to be equivalent to the cost of a physical CD bought in the store, the RIAA looks on the surface like they're creating a financial incentive to go and buy the album at a music store. But we all know that's not how this will work out.
What will happen is that iTunes' sales will drop, but they won't be met with a commeasurate increase in sales at music stores. The RIAA knows that people accustomed to the iTunes Music Store will return to illegal acquisition of music via filesharing before they'll go to the store and buy it.
In fact, they're counting on it, because once the iTunes music store is dead, they can say, "See? We tried, we put our best foot forward, but it just didn't work. These pirates aren't interested in paying." Then the lawyers can go to town, until there is no technological nor legal recourse available to escape their stranglehold on recorded music.
It's not only evil, it's fucking brilliant.
Even Jesus hates listening to Creed.
On iTunes, Napster (the irony), Wal*Mart, et al, the artist gets the share the record company is conractually abliged to pay them. Whether that's 1 cent a song or 50 cents a song. Whatever pittance it might be, they do get payed.
AllOfMP3 and other grey market Russian MP3 sites do not pay them anything at all. Maybe, just maybe they got a few pennies from the sale of the CDs that these companies bought to master their catalogs, but I really doubt that as well.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
I agree with most of what you are saying, but you cannot knock newer performers from imitating older ones, and morphing styles. That is no indication of their talent. Every generation of every form of art has done that. Even legends the likes of Led zepplin and Pink Floyd had their respective heroes, and copied their styles to a degree. That is how an artform evolves. Though, I do agree that there is a lot of crap out there today. Britney is hot, but talentless. Christina has an incredible voice, but her music is tripe. *I* think Branch is a very talented young lady, and so does the legendary Carlos Santana. You may not agree, but unlike the likes of Britney, et. al., she can actually play an instrument!
Anonymous Cowards suck.
If you need to have a song from the majors, then download it off the net for free. Period. Downhill Battle has some suggestions for staying below the RIAA lawsuit radar when running your P2P client. But better yet, just stop listening to RIAA music and get involved in the indie scene. Make it a change in your mindset, to eschew the marketing hype and think for yourself.
...is because non-RIAA bands can get "shelf space" right next to theirs, with previews so you can listen to, not only see an unknown name. I think they've started to see what iTMS would become, should it become successful (i.e. make a dent in physical CD sales, not biggest online shop).
The RIAA is working very hard to keep their customers "in the dark" about other bands. Sure, the odd person may go "indie" but they don't want a mass of people to make something "indie" into "mainstream". I.e. take the "impressionable teenager that listens to what other teenagers listen to" market.
After all, I'm sure there's more than enough music out there for me to listen to it 24/7 for the rest of my life without hearing anything twice, most of them non-RIAA (a lot of crappy ones too, but many good I'm sure). The iTMS could show it all.
It's not the distribution channel they fear. It's the exposure to all sorts of music you can get through the iTMS. Imagine word-of-mouth going around "Check you band X on iTMS, they're really good". With instant previews, instant satisfaction, instant spreading the word, instant fame.
Suddenly a band that never would have reached "critical mass" without the RIAA before, could make it big. Get your music up on iTMS, hit the "hip" people, the trendsetters, and you don't need a huge record contract, retail stores or a media blitz to make people hear and buy your song.
You've got no problem with a million people suddenly wanting your song, no scale-up problems, no production delays, no distribution bottlenecks. Nothing. World-wide (well, not yet but iTMS will get there).
That is why the RIAA will hold the online stores in a chokehold. Killing them would make them seem bad "they won't deliver what the customers want", too loose could shatter their hold on the market. Expect the DRM to become more and more anal.
Then blame the consumer for not wanting it. "We tried to sell it online". It's perfect. They get to keep their profitable CD sales, the consumers look like the bad guys and Apple the "friendly" that really only wants to sell iPods. Which btw is quite happy as long as they're the biggest *online* shop, making most people buy iPods.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Wait a fucking minute here. We've got 5 big media conglomerates coming together to discuss how to artificially increase the cost of their products. Exactly how is this not conspiracy and extortion? How does these actions allow for competitive market forces to drive the cost of their product to the peak price points according to the law of supply and demand? Why the fuck aren't these criminals in fucking jail where they fucking belong? Fucking anti-competitive un-American terrorist bastard dickheads. These scumbag assholes can fucking rot in hell.
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
They're trying to get people used to paying CD prices for downloaded music so they can phase out CD sales all together, thereby significantly curtailing the trade in mp3s, reducing their distribution costs to nil, and gradually moving people to a pay-per-use model for content consumption. It's the Entertainment Industry's Holy Grail. The IRS taught us long ago you don't hit people up for a ton of money up front, you take it from them bit by bit.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Has anyone else noticed that the NY Post article has an element of libel to it? They cleary state that an album by N.E.R.D. costs $16.99 on the iTMS, when it only costs $13.99, last time I checked. It seems that whoever wrote this article didn't take the time to verify simple facts. Can the rest of it be trusted? It seems unlikely to me that 10 after saying that single prices will not rise, Apple would raise them.
RIAA members make money by casting nets throughout the distribution networks they control utterly through means of their cartel.
New methods of distribution are a grave threat (literally) to their necessity, which in both business and nature is a swift road to extinction - unless those streams either emerge under strict controls, or are addressable through business or legal tactics.
Internet music distribution is a bear of a problem to these people. There is no specific competitor to be bought out or sued, or specific technology to buy into; the fight against Napster underscored this point clearly.
Furthermore, their entire livelihood - marketing and distribution of music - has morphed over the past decade into obsolesence. "Push" marketing - the only kind RIAA members know about - never fails to fail on the net, and "distribution management" is something that software can handle with far less overhead than RIAA is demanding from artists in meatspace.
RIAA supporting music downloads is like Bush campaigning for Kerry. If legal music downloads take off, RIAA dies. It isn't any more complex than that. The net undermines all of their profit schemes.
Notice how popular legal music downloads are getting? If they get too popular, who'll need RIAA? RIAA has been pushing against illegal alternatives, so they can't very well opt out without validating most every argument put against them as to their motive. So what other option do they have to curb the burgeoning frenzy? If legal downloads make overall music sales go up, what reason will they have to petition Congress or judges?
IMO they're trying to make downloads so unattractive an option that most people either go back to illegal downloads or CD buying. In the case that it fails to stop legal downloads or increase CD sales, they still make a lot of money. It's a no-lose plan.
That's ok, I can do it.
Here's a partial list for your boys, Led Zeppelin:
Don't get me wrong, I love Led Zeppelin. But this old-geezer crap about music these kids listen to today sucking is the same old-geezer crap that's been spouted by old geezers since at least the 30s. Do you think maybe it's just a matter of perspective?
They're trying to get people used to paying CD prices for downloaded music so they can phase out CD sales all together, thereby significantly curtailing the trade in mp3s, reducing their distribution costs to nil, and gradually moving people to a pay-per-use model for content consumption. It's the Entertainment Industry's Holy Grail.
And when distribution costs are nil, what incentive will there be for any content producer to go through an XXAA member to get their art on the market?
When distro costs are nil, what's to stop minor-league competitors from jumping in and offering less-restrictive competition that would be more attractive to consumers and therefore producers?
Distribution is RIAA's raison d'être. Monopoly control over it is the only reason any producers put up with the majority fees on sale, the content manipulation and other bullshit. When they lose that, the house of cards comes down, DRM or no DRM.
By forcing Apple to raise its prices to be compatible with store bought CDs the RIAA plans to kill its competition and piracy.
If downloading music costs the same as a store bought CD ( or more ) most people will let the record companies do the work and give them a nice
"store bought" package.
End of legal downloadable music.
Additionally, by temporarily allowing legal downloadable music to flourish ( in combination with their lawsuits for illegal downloading ) they have moved many people away and out of the habit of stealing music over the internet.
If more people start stealing music over the internet again the RIAA can play martyr with an improved public image. "Hey, we let legal downloads happen and these people insist on stealing anyway".
Steve
I have yet to pay for a single song on-line. It's rediculous. Look at the facts: 1) It's limited to the number of times you can copy it (thus breaking the benefit of digital media). I replace my computer once per year, so that means the songs I'd buy have at best a five year experation date. 2) They cost as much as CDs (and with this price hike they cost more). So I get 5 years of a song, no cover art, no good back-up options, and I pay more? The music lables are killing themselves and I sit back and laugh. Issue "remaster" after "remaster" and then flop like dying fish with SACD and DVD-Audio (which would be even more re-issues). THe record labels could make MORE money by using on-line distribution at a lower price point. Make the songs cheap enough (say $0.50 each?) and people will buy them. Remove copy protection and, sure, people will share them with their friends but that is how music has been for decades. Who never dubbed a cassette in the 70's or 80's for a friend? Who never burned off a CD in the 90's? Trading music small-scale allows people to be exposed to music they would not be otherwise, and then those people may buy OTHER tracks. By avoiding the profit-sharing distribution method of shipping CDs to Best Buy, and reducing the cost by not having to press CDs, pay photographers and artists for cover art, etc. the record labels can save butt-loads of cash. Reduce the cost per song, make even more money. But no, they'd rather do stupid crap like this. I'm glad to see their monopolistic tactics are working about as well as shooting themselves in the foot. I, meanwhile, laugh heartily and visit my locally owned used CD store reguarly.
"Mission Accomplished" -- George W. Bush May 1, 2003