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Music Exec Fires Back At Apple CEO
geniusj writes "Warner Music Group CEO, Edgar Bronfman Jr., has fired back at Steve Jobs in response to the Apple CEO's claim that having variable pricing for iTunes music would be 'greedy.' From the article: 'To have only one price point is not fair to our artists, and I dare say not appropriate to consumers. The market should decide, not a single retailer ... Some songs should be $0.99 and some songs should be more. I don't want to give anyone the impression that $0.99 is a thing of the past ... We are selling our songs through iPod, but we don't have a share of iPod's revenue ... We want to share in those revenue streams. We have to get out of the mindset that our content has promotional value only.' Perhaps iPods combined with iPods are selling music as well, and it's not just a one-way street?"
I don't think so. Why should they deserve a share of iPod sales?
Maybe the record companies should get a cut of every CD player and stereo system ever sold?
So I guess no songs should be LESS than $0.99. Apparantely that is the minimum value for all music clips of any length or quality. Oh, and I like how they want a cut of the "iPod" revenue. Maybe they should go after CD player manufacturers and home stereo's too, by that logic. Classic.
I actually think variable pricing would be OK -- if it went the other way. Make some songs 99c and some less. After all, music is part of the computer world now, and in the computer industry prices only go down. :-)
As for wanting a share of the music player revenue stream and needing to "monetize their product", what's wrong with the ~75c per song of pure profit that they're making now? Music labels didn't get a cut of Walkman or Discman sales; why should anything change now?
That's the best suggestion I've heard so far. Even if 99 is the lowest the music industry wants to go, what about 99 for stuff older than 5 years, $1.25 for newer stuff and $1.50 for top 100 stuff? It might get people to look a bit more broadly than whatever's on the radio today, and in so doing realise what dross most of the top 100 is, compared to stuff that has stood the test of time. And if not, well at least the record industry's mammoth profits are mostly at the expense of people with poor taste ;-)
"'I pass the test,' she said. 'I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.'"
- JRR Tolkien.
Let the market decide the price? Well, Napster will let you have access to 1,000,000 for $10 per month. Now, it's not really far to say that $10/1,000,000 is the price, because you can't listen to that many songs in a month. An average month has roughly 44,000 minutes in it. Figure an average person will sleep through a third of that (eight of 24 hours), and (let's through the industry a bone and say that I'm a shallow teenager with no attention span) a poop -- sorry, pop -- song is 2.5 minutes long, that's about 5,849 songs that I can listen to for $10. That means each song is worth $0.0017 -- a tenth of one cent.
The free market rocks!
Wait... wait a second. He didn't say anything about being cheaper than 99 cents, did he? Crap.
Celine Dion declared herself bankrupt and she apperently sold millions of records/songs, there is also that Courney Love speech and thats been covered here before.
If he wants to make 'artists' rich perhaps he should get out the entertainment business so the artists make more profit.
Send Peter Clifford Francis Macrae comdoms to 23 Bedford St, St.Neots, PE19 1AX, England
There is obviously a transition, albeit slow, at hand. I read and hear more and more often of known musicians doing their own recording and there's a growing number of indie artists doing everything from soup to nuts - meaning recording, producing and marketing their own content. I wish things would speed up. What does it take for this trend to gain momentum? How come I don't see these artist who are involved in producing and marketing their own content banding together and creating their own marketing campaigns to promote purchasing music online? A campaign in direct challenge to these goddamned douche-bag record companies crap anti-piracy/it's not fair to our artists three ring circus?
Here's what things I see needing to happen before everyone can fully give the labels the collective finger
In short. revolt, tear it all down and then all of you people out there in the industry who have an honest and useful talent step up and rebuild it. There's no reason you shouldn't continue making a living and there's every reason to rethink your business and end up making much happier customers and in turn making yourself a really nice living. To hell with fighting the existing recording industry. To hell with them, go around them. What law exists that sa
This guy seems to imply that the music industry can kill the iPod by refusing to sell through the iTunes music store. This would only be possible if the vast majority of iPods was not filled with songs from P2P serivces and ripped CDs.
"We want to share in those revenue streams. We have to get out of the mindset that our content has promotional value only" OK, then, start releasing music with more than "promotional value". To quote Col. Bruce Hampton, "The best thing about popular music is that it isn't popular for long." Take Care - ZC
When I was a kid, I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realized that the Lord, in his wisdom, didn't wor
aware that Apple might start dealing directly with the artists? Of course, they would have to come to a deal with the other Apple, but I'm sure that wouldn't be a huge problem.
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.45 (you read that right, 45 cents) per CD to something closer to 100%.
If not for most artists already having a strangling deal with a major record company which prohibits them from doing so.
The artists need to get themselves released from their contracts, or merely let them expire.
Then, Apple promotes them. They go from making
I, for one, welcome our new Antichrist overlord.
Doesn't this prove Steve's point that the records industry is getting greedy?
He's also forgetting that once there's a disincentive to downloading popular songs, they're going to get downloaded less, and since the music charts themselves are based on the quantities purchased, the top songs will fall down the charts and into a lower price bracket, thus simultaneously making the charts meaningless and ensuring that the music industry won't actually realize the extra profit this move was supposed to give them. Brilliant.
"and I dare say not appropriate to consumers" ????
If this guy thinks that songs should be sold for more than $0.99, then he should go ahead and do so. I mean, really, go ahead and start selling songs for more than that and see how that works out. He is perfectly free to set up his own online music store, and because of the extreme flexibility of the technology involved, this will just involve getting the files on to your portable music player from a URL instead of from the iTunes application.
Once he has done this he can set the songs in his music store to cost $1.99 or $5.00 or $53.00 or absolutely whatever price he likes, and if people choose to buy it then all of that money will go right to him. While of course meanwhile the iTunes Music Store will still be back there offering quality music at $0.99 a song.
Then the market will decide for itself. That's what he says he wants, right?
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
The music industry is largely superfluous at this point, but unfortunately they haven't realized that yet. Unfortunately, they won't go down without a fight, and since they have made such an obscene amount of money over the years, they have the cash reserves to wage quite a war.
Vote with your dollars, go see live music. Go see that local band that has been playing at the corner bar for years. Find someone who seeks out music outside the mainstream and have them make you a mix. There is so much more out there than reaches the top 100. As digital distribution expands we will have more access to what we want, not what we are being force fed. Turn off MTV, it is the industry.
'The words of the prophet are written on studio walls'
So what if the music industry folds? Does that mean no one will ever sing a song again? Will the world be silenced forever? Will Beethoven, Mozart, et al roll over in their graves because there is no more music industry? I would like for people like Bronfman to explain in very detailed terms what value they bring in the 21st century to the music making process? My guess it is a very marginal addition.
I have over 5,000 cds and a couple thousand Lps. If there was never another CD produced, I still have enough music to last me a lifetime. Additionally, because of advances in computer tech, I can now produce my own music which I do for my own amusement. It may not appeal to anyone else but I get enormous satisfaction from doing it myself. Again, what do I need the music industry for?
I say let the music industry perish. Out of its ashes, a new phoenix will rise that will be a lot more interesting and compelling. Dollars will flow to those that embrace a modern paradigm.