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Apple Shifts iTunes Pricing; $0.69 Tracks MIA

Posted by kdawson on from the where-it-comes-down-that-is-not-my-department dept.

Hodejo1 writes "Steve Jobs vowed weeks ago that when iTunes shifted to a tiered price structure in April, older tracks priced at $0.69 would outnumber the contemporary hits that are rising to $1.29. Today, several weeks later, iTunes made the transition. While the $1.29 tracks are immediately visible, locating cheaper tracks is proving to be an exercise in futility. With the exception of 48 songs that Apple has placed on the iTunes main page, $0.69 downloads are a scarce commodity. MP3 Newswire tried to methodically drill down to unearth more of them only to find: 1) A download like Heart's 34-year-old song Barracuda went up to $1.29, not down. 2) Obscure '90s Brit pop and '50s rockabilly artists — those most likely to benefit from a price drop — remained at $0.99. 3) Collected tracks from a cross-section of 1920s, '30s, and '40s artists all remained at $0.99. Finally, MP3 Newswire called up tracks in the public domain from an artist named Ada Jones who first recorded in 1893 on Edison cylinder technology. The price on all of the century-old, public-domain tracks remained at $0.99. (The same tracks are available for free on archive.org.) The scarcity of lower-priced tracks may reflect the fact that the labels themselves decide which price tier they want to pursue for a given artist; and they are mostly ignoring the lower tier. Meanwhile, Amazon's UK site has decided to counter-promote their service by dropping prices on select tracks to 29 pence ($0.42)."

10 of 429 comments (clear)

  1. Surprise? by SultanCemil · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Does it surprise anybody that the labels would not drop prices when not forced to? There is no competition between different labels to sell the same product (song) so why would they drop the price on a desired product (song) ?

    --
    Cemil.
    1. Re:Surprise? by Mordok-DestroyerOfWo · · Score: 5, Interesting

      In my mind they're competing against illegal downloads. Some people would rather torrent rather than purchase an album at $1.29 per track, having a lower price could start converting fence-sitters like these.

      --
      "Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
    2. Re:Surprise? by Adrian+Lopez · · Score: 5, Interesting

      If you are running a business, ASCAP will bill you for ANY performance, whether or not you are playing free music.

      They might, but they are not supposed to.

      --
      "In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
    3. Re:Surprise? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      It's time for Apple to start signing artists directly; bypassing the record companies for new recordings.

    4. Re:Surprise? by Dhalka226 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Unfortunately, they're also competing against themselves. Take my story from just today:

      I had heard a song and decided I wanted it. I poked around a little bit but couldn't find the song; I didn't see it in iTunes, not on Amazon mP3, not on Walmart's MP3 service. I could get the whole CD from Amazon, but apparently it was only released on a Canadian label in Canada, and I wasn't inclined to pay $25 to buy an import--particularly when I had never heard the other songs on the CD and only wanted that one.

      Eventually I went to the artist's website. "Ah HA!" I said to myself. There was a "buy this on iTunes" link. I had no idea how I missed it on iTunes the first time, but no matter. Click the link, iTunes pops up dutifully. And--what's this? "This item is not available in the US version of iTunes. Click here to switch stores." Okay, no problem. Except that apparently it is a problem, since as a US customer I'm not special enough to buy anything from the iTunes Canadian store.

      So I pirated the damn song.

      I literally tried to give these people my money. I went out of my way to do so, I registered with iTunes and was about to buy the first song I've ever bought from them (I don't care for it or Apple very much) just to give them my money--and they refused it. There's certainly no TECHNICAL reason they couldn't have given me the song; in fact, they had to go out of their way to impose the technical limitation that I couldn't get it. But for whatever reason, that was the choice they made. So I walked away.

      I say all that just to get to this: They still don't understand the Internet. They want to have their cake and eat it too*; to have their exclusivity and licensing deals, to continue selling music at frankly inflated prices and only pay lip service to the way the Internet has and WILL change their industry. Well, so be it. They're the copyright owners. But so long as they go out of their way to gouge us on prices (it seriously costs as much to buy the CD online as get it from the store now?!), prevent "undesirables" from buying their music and otherwise make the legal route the most unreasonable, largest pain in the ass way of getting music... they'll never stand any chance against piracy. I don't feel the slightest bit bad about what I did today. I would have paid the $1.29 even though I think it's too expensive. I would have paid the $0.99 feeling the same way. I couldn't. Until this sort of nonsense changes, they have little chance of actually getting any number of fence-sitters to their side. So long as piracy remains both the cheapest and the easiest way of acquiring things, it will remain the biggest.

      This is my annoyance as a US customer, and in reality I have access to the majority of things I might want. Imagine how many would-be customers they're shutting out even from US operations by no doubt excluding the rest of the world as I was excluded from the Canadian offering. Think they'll learn?

      * Stupidest expression ever? I think so.

  2. No rhyme or reason... by l00sr · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The funny thing behind the "lowered" prices is that various albums used to be offered for $10 with no hullaballoo at all. I bought Throwing Copper (a 90's alt-rock masterpiece) in 2005 for $6, and I bought Blues Travelers' Four just last year for $6.41, both from ITMS. The price of each of those albums now: $10. Admittedly, I didn't get DRM-free versions for the lower prices, but it still seems fishy.

    Makes one wonder how many albums like this have actually seen stealth price increases.

  3. Will be interesting to see what happens to sales by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It will be very interesting to see what happens to sales on this.

    There is a price where profit is maximized. Go too high and the sales drop eats more then the added profit per unit provides.

    Old saying: "Fast nickels are better than slow dimes." Let's see if Apple has switched from the former to the latter.

    --
    Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
  4. Re:Variable Pricing Not the Feature to Have Eviden by Toonol · · Score: 5, Interesting

    There's a clear reason it is priced higher: It was in Guitar Hero II. Both my sons and all their friends know Barracuda, and not because of their love for classic rock.

  5. Re:Variable Pricing Not the Feature to Have Eviden by Ethanol-fueled · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Bingo. From link:

    "The amount being paid to the music industry, even though [these] games are entirely dependent on the content we own and control, is far too small," Warner Music Group CEO Edgar Bronfman told analysts last summer.

    Guitar Hero drives much more sales than your ad agencies and your lawsuits, assholes. The funny thing is that the recording industry are beginning to attack their own kin, MTV Games!

  6. Re:Variable Pricing Not the Feature to Have Eviden by Gerzel · · Score: 5, Interesting

    emusic.com is another viable alternative to Itunes.

    -No DRM
    -MP3 Format
    -Large Selection(Though it is true they tend to have better alternative selections and fewer name-brands)
    ->$1 per track. (I pay $0.21 per)

    There is life in music beyond what is shoveled through the pop radio and TV ads.