Price Hikes & Status Tracks
Shit, I almost forgot to post something everyone could hate together. You may or may not have heard that iTunes will probably raise its prices from 99 cents. Back when the industry first started pushing Steve Jobs for a hike, he called them greedy and said it'd only increase piracy.
Now, I'm not an expert in digital music sales, but bumping it up 20, 30, or 50 cents probably won't do too much to increase piracy. So why is Apple fighting this? Well, control, according to Joel on Software:
Here's the dream world for the EMI Group, Sony/BMG, etc.: there are two prices for songs on iTunes, say, $2.49 and $0.99. All the new releases come out at $2.49. Some classic rock (Sweet Home Alabama) is at $2.49. Unwanted, old, crap, like, say, Brandy (You're A Fine Girl) -- the crap we only know because it was pushed on us in the 70s by paid-off disk jockeys -- would be deliberately priced at $0.99 to send a clear message that $0.99 = crap.Like I said, I'm not an expert, and it's a complex issue, but I wouldn't be surprised if they dream of exploting that cultural impulse to covet $500 jeans for their exclusivity by offering $5 "exclusive" singles and $0.99 "bargain" music. I mean, there's also this quote from the CEO of the Warner Music Group: "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." Why should some songs be more? Is it because they're better?And now when a musician gets uppity, all the recording industry has to do is threaten to release their next single straight into the $0.99 category, which will kill it dead no matter how good it is. And suddenly the music industry has a lot more leverage over their artists in negotiations: the kind of leverage they are used to having. Their favorite kind of leverage. The “we won't promote your music if you don't let us put rootkits on your CDs” kind of leverage.
And Apple? Apple wants the signaling to come from what they promote on the front page of the iTunes Music Store. In the battle between Apple and the recording industry over who gets to manipulate what songs you buy, Apple (like movie theaters) is going to be in favor of fixed prices, while the recording industry is going to want variable prices.
It'd also have the effect of making inexpensive tracks by, say, indie bands look cheap, as well, right?
(via Slashdot)
Posted at 4:35 PM
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The majors really know how to piss off those people who they are trying to lure away from illegal downloads. Why not a little more carrot, guys, and less stick?
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That pisses me off so much! I love Apple in general, but Steve Jobs has always been the greedy bastard people have known him to be. Well, I better stock up on as many 99 cent songs until the time comes...sigh...
By the way, does anyone have the new Sufjan track off of his Illinoise vinyl version? If so, let me know!
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I would NEVER pay $2.50 for a single song. EVER. 99 cents should be the limit considering iTunes' lossy songs.
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Alas, I remember the days when iTunes began and ALL songs were 99¢ Hello Bitches Brew for 6.93, but then they wised up and now long songs are only available as part of albums and whatever for $9.99. Record companies especially good is screwing everyone at once (including themselves) so they will work out the best system for this.
Why don't they just make cds cheaper again?
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The only way that prices will go up on the iTunes store is if the labels threaten to pull all of their content. iTunes does not want to change the pricing structure, it's the labels. We're fighting to keep the prices at 99 cents.
If the majors force us to change the pricing, my bet is that you will see the programmers featuring even more independent music.
Chris, I don't know why you are mad at Apple and Steve Jobs over this.
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I definitely think we should be looking in the labels' direction on this one.
First, Apple makes little to no money from iTunes, after the label takes its cut (65 cents), they still have to pay for advertising and the workforce that keeps the site up. All of Apple's dough comes from iPods, and, well their superior computers and software.
Second, the major labels have been pining for a way to get their grubby hands back on some dough for a long time now, ever since they lost a good deal of their direct-to-store distribution monopoly. They absolutely hate the idea of a middle man like Apple, even though they're fleecing it.
Industry rule #4080 still applies...and, yes, Jim, I am pissed. But, then, I'm still angry about the Strokes video sucking.
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Yeah that video does suck.
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...but not as much as record labels!
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lindsay alert! can you believe this?
http://www.gawker.com/news/top/the-lindsay-lohan-story-137504.php
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My thought is this: the reason that the iTunes Music Store has been successful (at least in part) is the fact that it finally gave people a chance to - once again - buy singles. I remember as a kid, you could go into your local Tower Records or Sam Goody and buy a cassette single of Color Me Badd's latest hit for $1.99. No need to round up the $12 it'd cost for a full album.
Over the subsequent 10 years, the music industry basically abandoned the single, and preferred to sell only albums. Part of the allure of free downloading was being able to get singles, as opposed to the whole album (as anyone who illegally downloaded a Britney Spears song can attest to... damn, there are some catchy singles.) iTunes Music Store let you do this - legally - and of the $500 I've spent there since it opened (it's been 2 1/2 years, an eternity in music world) at least of what I've purchased is in single format, not albums.
Sounds like the music industry just wants people to buy albums and they're willing to piss off otherwise loyal customers to do that.
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F iTunes. This eMusic trial for 50 free mp3s is where it's at. http://www.emusic.com/promo/brand.html?AID=10395158&PID=1847181
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it's the labels once again being greedy. the article points out nicely how for movies there is a stable across the board price whether it starts j-Lo or DeNiro or whether it's a hit or a dud. same price. that is how is should stay for iTunes as well. fuck 2.49 per song.
apple has fought long and hard to keep it at 99 cents. not steve jobs fault. and if the labels force apple to change the price eMusic will be forced as well. don't believe the hype.
and WTF is up with the CEO of warner claiming they should be getting a cut of the iPod revenue? if it wasn't for the iPod they'd be making less money altogether.
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Unbelievably, the record companies continue to shoot themselves in the foot. The one person they should listen to is Steve & Apple, who literally saved their asses. The renewal contracts for iTunes licensing are coming up, and the labels will only allow Apple use of their artists if they agree to variable download prices. The point that is missed on most people is that it costs virtually nothing to distribute electronic music files (unlike physical cd's). It is simply outrageous to charge 2.49 for a download single. If you extend that thinking, a 12 track CD will cost nearly thirty dollars. I hope the current scandal with "content protected" cd's will encourage the public to familiarize themselves with both the issues and the intentions of the industry to increase pricing both at retail and electronically, while providing you with a lesser product i.e. "content protected" cd's that don't allow transferring the music you've paid for to iPods or laptops.
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Who in the right state of mind would pay $2.50 for a song you can hear on the radio constantly?
And also, buying digital music is just rather pointless. CDs have more substance (not to mention artwork and a neat box), and if you wanted that one single, that one single is probably all over the Internet without costing a penny.
If they do raise the prices, I don't see how it's going to change anything with the indie kids. I guess once a band has a song costing more than usual, the band officially stops being cool...or something like that. I doubt this is actually going to happen, though. Like, remember how the copy protected CDs are being taken back now? This won't last.
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that's it...
i'm going to start making compilation mix tapes ON CASSETTE like i used to do when i was a kid in the 70's of songs playing on the radio that i'm going to record off my boom box speaker....
just got to fix my tape player in my car.....
wait...i don't even think my new SUV has a cassette tape player.....
WTF?
damn you steve jobs!
how about a portable turntable i can plug into my car's cigarette lighter? what am i supposed to do with all this vinyl?
love,
maya lucia
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Record company people are shady.
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Show them by not supporting their move. Indeed an increase in record prices would increase my chances of piracy. The whole thing works on principles. How much of my .99 is the artist actually seeing? How much more will they recieve. Show the bastard record companies that greed is what kills them. Why the increase in price, is it costing more to produce .mp3's that. There are other ways to support your artist's if the record companies and distributors are gouging. Buy merch from their site, or go see them live and buy stuff from them there. If you continue to buy their music at inflated prices, they will have no qualms about inflating again in a couple years.
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and i'll still torrent that shit.
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Don't take the $2.50 song so literally - obviously "Joel on Software" just grabbed a number out of the air to make it much bigger than the current 99 cents.
I read his piece, and I think its speculative at best. iTunes may rule the legal download market, but that is a tiny fraction of the overall market. The vast majority of music buyers stick to CDs, and don't know or care whats happening on iTunes.
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yeah, $2.50 is speculative, and I'm sure it'll look more like $1.30 when the dust settles. the value's in the insight as to *why* they want tiered pricing.
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btw, two-fifty IS the price tier being looked at for "select" singles, though it will clearly be the majority of newer titles. Research and sales show that if people will pay 2.50 for a ring tone, they'll certainly pay 2.50 for the new Ashley or Madonna download. They'll also make available certain "single only" (premium priced) downloads which the kiddies will rush to, in order to be the first on the block. Like the copy protection issue, The only thing that can derail this train would be a massive outpouring of negativity from the music buying public and the press, and it's quite doubtful that will happen.
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.99 was overpriced already, and iTunes never had anything I wanted to hear anyway.
I love my iPods. I love my Macs. I love Steve Jobs. (Steve has fought the assholes on this.) But seriously, iTunes is for mainstream listeners, and .99 is too much for a lossy MP3 (AAC).
Just let the damn labels fade into obscurity. They've already got their head in the noose and they're trying to kick the bucket over themselves.
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The $0.99 price point is a psychological issue that I have to agree strongly with Apple on. At that price point, it's much easier for someone to buy a song on a whim: "It's less than a dollar," you think as you download a track and that makes it worth the effort.
I am an adamant supporter of the iTunes Music Store, particularly at the $0.99 price point. I'm not concerned about the "lossy" music format (for my listening purposes, it really doesn't matter, and for most things outside of Coltrane or Tool or something, it's not really much of an issue) or a philosophical discussion about the ethics of purchasing such artistic works. What I am concerned about is the long term future of wide-scale music distribution.
The problem is that Apple and the record industry are fighting for control of the distribution method. The record industry does not want Apple to become too successful, but they don't want Apple to fail, either. They simply want iTMS (and other such services) to become another revenue stream.
Apples iTMS is clearly the most successful distributor of paid music downloads, and thus they have a bit of leverage. What they need, though, is a lot of leverage, because the obvious end goal of the iTMS should be to toss out the middle man (record companies) and distribute directly for artists. That's a future that I think most of us want.
So what can we do? The best thing we can do is just buy a few songs at the $0.99 price point and also provide feedback to Apple stating that we will not pay a higher price point. Spending our time sniffing about "lossy" formats (and every format is "lossy;" you'll only ever hear non-lossy music at a live show) and such means that you're willing to accept the shenanigans of the record companies with things like Sony's DRM debacle.
It's worth your $0.99 to support Apple for two reasons: one, it's a good product for the price, and two, they're in the best position to bring about real change in music distribution.
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in Italy people do more purchasing of music over their phones than they do online, even though it costs 2 euros per song, which is completely whack. so yeah, there are morons out there who *will* pay $2.50 a song.
fuck em. this is really about the labels wanting their own online stores, and having an excuse to try to do over apple, who won't license fairplay drm to them.
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As someone who used to work for Warner, the only reason the head of the company said that was because they've been unprofitable for like the last 15 fiscal periods. Way unprofitable. And way publically traded. They're trying to do whatever they can to get money-- H.I.M. and Eisley sure aren't taking them straight to the top.
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Jenn--thanks for the insight--but that's exactly what's wrong with the major labels. Seeking to please their shareholders instead of giving money to the artists through whom they're trying to profit. Making money on the backs of the poor is the same whether it's Warner Music Group or Wal-Mart.
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nothing the record company or iTunes has done has stopped me from piracy. And it never will. its free and its easy. no guilt. they get my money by me going to shows, because the indie bands i like make all their money on the road. most indie bands have horrible royalty deals anyway. Fuck the RIAA and Fuck iTunes. Real artists want their music heard, only assholes do this shit.
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The labels need to listen to Steve at Apple. Apparently, he's the only one in the entire industry with a forward looking and sensible approach to legal online music. Over zealous price increases and flawed, anti-consumer copy protection may be the final step in the demise of the record business as we know it. Really, can you think of any other business that has so miserably failed at meeting consumer demands and expectations. Readers need to stay informed, here's a link to a great daily read:
http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/
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I think the main problem with Warner- and all labels- is advances. They're laying out too much money ahead of the album, and then recouping expenses from sales. It's very likely that I have no idea what I'm saying, but surely there's a model that doesn't involve spending $100,000 on Pop Punk Band #3498 to have them sell 15,000 albums. Or, in other words, to stop using Celine Dion to pay for Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.
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I'm not a shill for emusic.com, but if you're reading Stereogum and buying music online, it's the only way to go. For $10 a month, I get 40 downloads. It's an indie fans dream lineup of labels (Sympathy, Merge, Matador, Razor @ Tie, Bloodshot, etc.). You can get your Sufjan fix, and also download a butzillion different Bollywood soundtracks. Best parts: You own the tunes; you can download the stuff you multiple times; and the quality is great.
Definitely worth checking out.
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Yeah, second that, I can't see how any stereogum-reading "indie kid" is not on emusic.com.
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i've never bought a legal download. to me, that's just stupid.
all this bitching about a possible $2.49 download is just funny. i mean, does anyone remember cassingles? (i don't know if that should be one S or two).
maybe i just though stereogum readers like bands that put out great/good albums - you know, put in the cd or queue up the vinyl and listen to the whole thing...unless they need to be an ironic hipster by having a (insert really popular top 40/vh1) song on their ipod.
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I have to third or fourth the emusic comment... I don't understand why people are concerned with Itunes when it seems like one of the worst deals around. If you want to download at least 1 album a month you might as well just become an emusic member. If there is an album emusic doesn't have that you really want you could always buy the CD for 10-15$, which would get you high quality music with case, album art, liner notes, ect. Plus, with the actual CD, you can always sell it to someone else if you get tired of it. The current overcharge of $10 per album at itunes gets you low quality music you can't even put on an mp3 player.
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what makes the record companies think that a song should even be worth $2.50 to begin with? oh i know why, so they can make more money. thats what the case always is right? they can't be satisfied with .99 cents for every song? i think Apple was very smart with making the songs at a reasonable price. i mean, come on! who's gonna complain about paying .99 cents for a song? sure, it'd be better free, but if you can't avoid that, it isn't asking that much to pay 99 cents for your new favorite song, rather than paying maybe 15-20 bucks at the mall for a not so great CD that has that ONE and only amazing song on it.
i say that Apple keeps fighting! don't let the Big 5 get you down!
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Is there any other industry that can get away with this bullshit? First they start suing music listeners, and then once the goodwill starts to shift in their direction, Sony starts jacking up My Morning Jacket with fucking spyware and now they want to go over a dollar?
I agree with the folks about the .99 psychological aspect. It's very easy to justify the purchase when it's under a buck.
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I think iTunes is one of the fairest deals around...it's not free with no one being able to make a living, yet it's not ridiculously priced @ 17 bucks. It gives you options - full albums for $10 or singles for .99 - options the record labels would never have given you.
And what are these complaints about sound quality? The mp3's I've bought from the iTMS have always sounded high quality.
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How come we Brits are already paying more than you lot as it is? Costs us 79p for a song (a whole 22cents more) and £7.99 for an album ($12.20). You are getting a good deal. I know our music is miles better but come on!
I'm boycotting.
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Let both go to hell. You should never have to pay for individual songs, and the music industry needs to be swallowed before they ruin music even more. I'm glad there's money to be made in music, but I'm sick of everyone letting greed triumph over art.
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this is why I steal from the majors and buy from the indies
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I'll go right back to downloading all my music... I consider the 4 dollar or so change in price fair trade for not having album art (poor graphic designers), packaging, and distribution costs, as well as the slightly less quality sound in the end.
Profiteering.
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they could be one flippin' gay Lincoln penny for most indie bands....without a buzz..you sell squat on iTunes.
Everybody wants the song from band on the cover of the rolling stone...I guess I should say Pitchfork
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One day when I am uber rich, I will sign bands to my own record label, and actually not screw them.
But in the mean time... if the album is on sale at best buy, or somewhere for under $10 and its decent... i'll buy it... but i'm not shelling out money for a mediocre cd. I also want a hard copy if I have spent money on it. Because if something happens its a pain to convince people your hard drive crashed.
Half.com has used cd's for pretty decent pricing, sometimes promo copys are real cheap.
I think other than record companies being greedy, the thought could be that if you are going to have to spend $2.50 on one song, say there are 3 songs that you want to get off a 12 cd album... rather than spend $7.50 for 3 songs, you will go ahead and spend $9.99 for the album and that is an extra $2.50 they made for doing nothing, and it does not cost them any more to distribute them.
It forces you to spend more without realizing it. Retail stores do this all the time, but generally speaking they do not do it at the expense of the people that provide the product.
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