iTunes Might Lose Labels

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.'"

Comments

great!

[j.blechert]

good idea!
might change that 'it's new - it must be good' thingy people have in their heads..

Re:great!

[aussie_a]

Actually it may just re-inforce the "Oh it's more expensive so it must be better" meme people have in their heads.

Re:Great!

[deltagreen]

$1.49 might be too much for the top end, but a price substantially lower than 99 cents could indeed be a step in the right direction. Since plenty of the merchandise sold online is already in 'the long tail', an increase of sales in that segment, might show more clearly to the record companies two things: 1) Hits don't necessarily have the same pulling power in online stores as in the local store with a limited selection of 300 albums 2) Maybe selling three copies of a song at 75 cents is better than one at $1.49?

Re:Great!

[Anonymous Coward]

How sweet. Such innocent naivety in the shark pool of economics. What they meant to say is that some songs could be cheaper than others, not necessarily cheaper than $0.99.

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.

Yeah well

[teslatug]

It was working so well, it was about time they fucked it up.

$0.99? Yeah, right.

[Nimey]

I expect that if this goes through there will be few if any songs that go down in price.

Greed, greed, greed...

[Cirrocco]

The 99 cents per song you already pay is a bit much, especially considering there is NO physical packaging, shipping costs, storefronts with employees and power bills, ad infinitum.

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.

Greedy bastards

[tinrobot]

Like it costs so much to record a song in this day of digital recording. 99 cents is plenty.

The record labels pretty much killed CDs by charging 20 bucks each for them, now they'll kill this outlet as well.

AllOfMp3

[Rew190]

Let them do it. Sites like AllOfMp3.com will just get more business (which appears to be totally legal). Why would anyone buy a crappy compressed song for $1.50? At that price it costs as much (or more!) as a regular CD with artwork and no compression!

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!

Include more indies

[yintercept]

A variable pricing model would be fine with me. If iTunes were to include more indies and let each artist set their price, they we would end up with a dynamic model.

It seems to me that the primary problem with the music industry is the history of price fixing.

Re:A Cent Sign

[hattig]

I think your post sums up Windows vs. Mac OS X totally. :)

Re:Wow

[geofferensis]

I still don't see how this is Apple's fault.

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

[Altima(BoB)]

...they just wnat in on this price gouging that the oil companies are enjoying right now.

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.