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Music Labels May Seek Higher Download Prices

Posted by Zonk on from the they're-never-going-to-get-it dept.

punxking writes "Some of the big music labels are now clamoring to raise prices for digital music downloads. From the article: 'Music industry executives said introductory wholesale prices for digital tracks had been set low to stimulate demand for online music sales but the success of Apple's music store had prompted concern that they may now be too low.'" Relatedly, the BBC is reporting that iTunes is under investigation in Britain for charging disparities between the UK and the European continent.

2 of 446 comments (clear)

  1. Why does this remind me of ATMs by Bronz · · Score: 5, Interesting

    a) Started out "free" -- reasoning the bank didn't have to pay so many human tellers.
    b) Moved to a small fee for the operator of the ATM, which is understandable.
    C) Fee doubled when your bank realized it could charge you in addition to the charges of the ATM operator.
    D) Mext the fees nearly doubled to an average of $1.50 each side of the transaction (minus the "free" out of network uses you get per month).
    E) Finally -- we end up with bank plans where you can be charged to talk to a human teller.

    If we figure out where we went wrong with banks and ATMs it might help us not repeat the same mistake.

  2. "Many in the music business fear Apple's clout" by Zhe+Mappel · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Good point. For Apple this is going to have serious immediate repercussions. From TFA:

    Many in the music business also expressed concern over Apple's growing clout. This stems from the fact that Apple's music store and player are not compatible with any others. One fear is that Apple will become too powerful if consumers continue to choose its digital music platform. Apple declined to comment.

    "One fear"? I'd say it's the main fear. The sticking point is not Apple's proprietary technology itself as much as how market share allows Apple to assert downward pressure on per-song pricing. The music biz wants to kneecap Apple. The goal is to force Apple to open the iPod/iTMS, distribute the platform's market share among any number of companies, and so get digital distribution fully under the music industry's thumb. Cartels like chattel, not coequals.

    The big question is: if Jobs refuses, will the labels start to defect from iTMS? Apple will have planned for this scenario and their response is going to be very interesting--it will tell us pointedly where the power truly lies.