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iTunes Music Store hits Billionth Download
SirWraith writes "In case anyone hasn't realized Apple has had a counter going up to a billion for a few weeks now. Apparently last night, they hit the mark. From ABC News: 'Apple says Alex Ostrovsky from West Bloomfield, Mich., was the lucky audiophile who downloaded "Speed of Sound" by Brit pop band Coldplay, giving the Cupertino, Calif., company bragging rights to the 10-figure milestone.
Thanks to a generous prize package from Apple, Ostrovsky will now use a $10,000 iTunes music card to keep those downloads flowing on his new 20-inch iMac computer, and listen to his favorite tunes on one of the 10 60GB iPods.'"
Downloadable music isn't a viable music model.
It's not, for them, they aren't 100% in charge of how much Apple charges for the music. Steve is fighting the conglomorates to keep the prices on iTMS low. They want to raise the prices. Because they can't do as they wish it's not viable.
It's 99 cents, not 0.99 cents.
990M is a nice bit of income, but most of it [1] is paid out again. Apple doesn't say how profitable the iTMS is, just that it's "above even".
1: 10% of the cost of a song goes to the artist, 55% to the record company. Artists who do business with Apple directly, get 70%. Most of the remainder pays for the hardware and bandwidth.
Rumor has it that Apple's profit is 8%, or $80M after 1 Gsongs.
while true at one point, not true anymore. Apple makes a modest profit on the majority of content they sell via itms
Everyone else - 100,000
Soul Amp (My Band) 6
Actually I am stoked about iTunes/Mp3 and iPods....as a indie musician, self producing with a home grown label, iTunes allows us to collect 65 cents per song. Direct to the the band...
Unfortunately without the big money for PR and payola (yes Apple probably takes payola too...despite claims otherwise, I think they call them marketing fees or "services") We are relegated to being just 13 songs in a sea of millions. Thus sales have been slow. But...that can change in a heartbeat as anyone who listens to music can see.
So...feel free to scope iTunes and search for Soul Amp...I need another guitar amplifier (VOX Ac-30 or Matchless) and a leslie for our 1958 Hammond M3 organ.
Also for people who refuse to pay for music until guilt finally takes hold after scamming every song ever recorded, we have tracks of tunes we are working on for our next disk on our website. Hep yer self...I say whay wait until a rash breaks out from the guilt of free downloading...by indie music from iTunes. The bands actually get the bulk of the money. 65 cents of 99 is pretty damn good. Most bands that get mp3 blogged are on iTunes.
http://soul-amp.com/
Maybe the word should be podiophile !?