p2pnet - rss feed: Jobs sticks up for music lovers
p2p news / p2pnet:- The mainstream media are having a field day with Apple commodore Steve Jobs’ attack on his mp3 suppliers, the members of the Big Music record label cartel.
At the moment, download tracks wholesale for between 65 to 80 cents, Mashboxx boss Wayne Rosso told p2pnet, but the Big Four record labels want to see them at around $1.50 each.
“The labels are greedy,” says Jobs, the same man who tried to nail AppleInsider, Think Secret and PowerPage reporters for doing what journalists do, who exploited 16 gullible teenaged RIAA victims for an iPod advertising campaign, and whose own iTunes is being accused of seriously overcharging by the European Commission.
But iTunes is a self-funding promotional vehicle for iPod and a price hike might upset Jobs’ Apple cart, provoking the remark that an increase, “would drive users back to piracy”.
Now, Apple vows to keep rein on song prices, the Australian Financial Review; Apple boss slams ‘greedy’ music biz, VNUNet.com; Jobs slams ‘greedy’ music bosses, PC Pro, UK; Apple head attacks record firms, BBC News; and, the ridiculous Apple Computer CEO Jobs goes to bat for music lovers, the Globe and Mail, are just a few of the headlines.
Ironically, it’s left to an anonymous record label executive to tell it like it really is.
“Jobs’ desire to keep pricing at 99 cents had a very simple explanation,” MTV News has the executive saying: “It helps him sell iPods.” He’s “become the Wal-Mart of the Internet, and he wants to retain that monopoly”.
The source goes on unblushingly that the cartel is, “generally in favor of variable pricing, i.e., higher prices for hot, current artists and lower ones for less popular or older material”. This presumably means $1 for “less popular or older material” and $1.50 and up for “hot, current artists”.
“Music is art; it’s not a commodity,” the source states in what has to be the quote of the day, hastily adding, “Things that are more relevant command more money. The idea of saying it should all be 99 cents is absurd. Variable pricing is the norm in the music business and every business - even the iPod business.”
Stay tuned.
Something you think we should know? tips[at]p2pnet.net
See:-
65 to 80 cents - Mashboxx for mid-November, August 23, 2005
tried to nail - New Apple Asteroid trouble, September 13, 2005
RIAA victims - Pepsi-iTunes Super Bowl ad blasted, January 31, 2004
overcharging - Pot calls Kettle ‘greedy’, September 20, 2005
September 22nd, 2005 at 2:32 pm
i love when they talk about variable pricing. variable pricing should also take into consideration what you really get. music isn’t gasoline. there isn’t a limited supply of itunes music. just because more people like it doesnt mean it has any more inherit value than something that everyone hates. Gas gets more expensive because there is a limited production supply and there are actual physical problems to overcome. iTunes doesn’t have these limitations. There is 1 file on a server, that gets copied over and over again to the people who buy it. That immediately makes the variable pricing silly. It is more in tune with price gauging (gowjing - phonetically spelled, since i can’t spell for shit this early in the morning). Here’s the kicker too, your already paying low retail markup CD prices on iTunes. Now they want you to pay 15 dollars a CD just because it’s popular (which is rediculous because you only pay that much for a cd because of retail markup, brick and mortar shops need to make more money to stay open). On top of it, not getting anything except a sequence of 1s and 0s that’s impossible to play on anything that they didn’t make or approve. There’s is no physical anything (except for bandwidth and server) which makes it a hell of alot cheaper than fabrication, shipping and all the middle men costs. Their statements go a long way to reaffirm my belief that people in the entertainment industry get access to alot better drugs than we do.
September 22nd, 2005 at 3:15 pm
Mr Jobs doesnt seem to understand the long tail of the music bussiness or he just wishes to ignore it .
There is more older/obscure music that is unavailible at most record stores becuse they only stock the the top 1000 or some discount back catalog content provided by the record labels .How many record stores have a promotional stand where you can buy a back catalog CD for $7 or maybe less .So even the bricks and mortar record stores and the lables see the value in varible pricing its just Mr Jobs that wants to artificaliy inflate the price of all digital music not taking into consideration it poularity or age .
Record stores also have sale or return agreements with the Labels so if an album is not selling within a specifed time they can return thier inventory then these CD get stored in wharehouses or maybe even destroyed and the content goes into back catalog status.
More on why digital music downloads need to follow the Long Tail in this post from Chris Anderson the Editor in Chief of Wired Magazine .
http://www.thelongtail.com/the_long_tail/2005/08/could_the_label.html
September 22nd, 2005 at 4:04 pm
The title to this should be “Jobs sticks it to music lovers”
September 22nd, 2005 at 4:38 pm
Maybe I’m being charitable but I don’t think S.Jobs wants to artifically inflate the price. i think he wants to prevent the Record Biz from artificially inflating the price such that he has to pass it on.
I’m all in favour of variable pricing. Let’s have $0.50 per song for first run hits, with high demand, for 3 months and $0.10 per song ever after.
September 22nd, 2005 at 5:34 pm
Business and art were never meant to intermingle.
September 22nd, 2005 at 6:39 pm
Jobs isn’t sticking up for the lover of music. He is sticking up for his little corner of the world; the one that sells iPods as a business. Simple economics says the more you charge, the less people are going to buy.
This price gouging is already at unbelievable levels. I mean, I can’t not believe that they actually want a dollar for a digital downloan.
Everytime I hear this 99ยข crap I also think, “You want what?” I mean really, the prices are already at physical cd prices per song. You’re not getting anything put in your hand that is really yours. No series of middlemen did anything to see that this product arrived for your shopping pleasure. In all the time that I have ever gone to stores to buy things, this has to be one of the first times I have ever seen where “less is worth more” has ever been driven to such extremes.
The funny thing is that the cartels can actually say buying it this way is legal. (Even more amazing they do it with a straight face and no mask and gun outfit.) I don’t want these downloaned, crippled, inferior, non-tangible products at the prices they are charging now. Simply in my book their worth come no where near the value charged.
And they want to find an excuse to raise prices? *walks off howling with laughter”.
September 22nd, 2005 at 7:26 pm
Typicaly micropayment companies are asking 10c per transaction and the labels trying to get as much as a wholesale price they can get of at an average of 70c your looking at 20 cents goes to the company delivering content.out of that they have pay thier staff ,bandwidth and storage costs and end up reciveing less than 10c in profit per 99c song .
Larger files like Movies and Software are where the money is to made and advertising supported downloads can also make for more than a 99c song so thier is potential to generate revenue but music makes pennies even @ 99c
The labels want to adjust thier wholesale pricing becuse most of thier marketing costs are in the Head end but most of thier content is at the tail therfore they can hopefully offer lower prices under 99c .
I can see this as being good becuse people will be able to show the labels what they think is a fair price for content if they can buy under 99c like 79c or even 49c for older content and make that content popular the industry might rethink thier pricing strategy totally .
September 22nd, 2005 at 8:25 pm
There’s a way round micropayments which is to buy credit. Load up on credit and then download all you like until it runs out. Payment costs then become a fixed percentage of sales rather than a per unit cost.
September 22nd, 2005 at 10:54 pm
“Music is art; it’s not a commodity,” the [music industry] source states.
MUSIC INDUSTRY.
They want all the respect, protection, and value that works of art are accorded, but turn around and market and sell music as a commodity.
1. The original painting sells for $10,000. Sort of like hiring a “top 40 band” to do a private concert for one.
2. The 500 numbered, signed prints of the painting sell for $500 each. That would be like a recording of that private show that only 500 copies were made of, signed by the artist.
3. The unlimited run posters of the painting sell for $4 each. Pretty much like buying a typical compact disc.
4. Looking at an image of the painting on the web. Basically free, like listening to streaming music.
Digital music downloads fall somewhere between #3 & #4, closer to #4 in my mind, and should be priced accordingly.
They want to have their cake and eat it too. Everyone knows that is not possible, except for the music industry, evidently…
September 23rd, 2005 at 2:02 am
who pays for music? I sure don’t. I will pay lots of cash to see the artist live in concert. Online tunes should be about 25 cents each. Thats for the cost of the retailing the songs. The people running this cartel have shit for brains if they think raising prices with do them well. The best way to compete with file sharing is to sell songs very cheap and lots of them.
September 23rd, 2005 at 2:35 am
Music damn sure is a like commodity when you can download it off the net for free pal. Maybe not the economic term, but it is treated as such.
September 23rd, 2005 at 2:37 am
$.000001, $1, $.99 - it doesn’t matter what the cost. I’m not buying. Also, boycott them no matter what price they charge. Hit them in the wallet, the only method these fascists understand.