I can't believe there are still discussions about messing with iTunes pricing and the possibility of a subscription service. It amazes me the record labels STILL don't get it. A subscription service is a non-starter. It's never worked and it never will work. I can live with the variable pricing they've introduced but it is a mistake that will cause them to lose money.
I'm going to make it real clear for the record labels: the more complicated you make your pricing the less money you will make. Drop the egos. Jobs saved your ass so maybe you should defer to him on this. I don't worship the guy but it's just a fact. Without iTunes/Jobs you would all be screwed. Look, many people, like myself, use to download the majority of their music illegally. Why did we stop? Well, iTunes finally presented a REASONABLY PRICED and HIGH QUALITY alternative. One in which we could find the music quickly, easily download it and not worry about the safety or legality of the file. 99 cents is the intersection at which this makes sense. But what do the record labels suggest? "Hey, we're in a major recession! Let's look into raising prices! And maybe we'll try that subscription thing again! Let's give Apple a hard time even though they saved us!" Could these egomaniacs possibly be any dumber? A 5th grader would know that doesn't make sense.
Quit messing with something that works! If customers have to worry that prices will be raised or that they will not truly own music they paid for, they will go elsewhere. Again.
What's preventing the Apple staff from taking payola on the sly for recommending select music. Since they are the ones who choose the music.
And another thing, what qualification's do they have. Aw gee Larry I sure like that country western dress on the chick.......
They have the same qualifications that FM dj's did in radio's heyday: they are individuals with a point of view. Of course this is what the labels object to.. they want everything to be corporatized, homogenized, and dictated from the top. (Yes, in fact, they would prefer iPayola. History has proven that there's nothing they like better than controlling the 'airwaves' at any cost). The idea that Apple's staff needs "qualifications" (given out by who, the RIAA?) beyond their ears to provide an editorial point-of-view via their recommendations is just another way of trying to homogenize music culture in the same way the labels and Clear Channel successfully homogenized radio.
What exactly of significance was negotiated here that's in Apple's favor? We have Apple yielding to the music industry by providing variable pricing, while removing Fairplay DRM which Jobs said Apple didn't want to use but which actually would seem to have benefited the company by driving iPod sales. From this article, it seems Apple was the entity pushing for DRM, to be used as leverage against the music industry to maintain fixed pricing. Apple finally decided to drop its DRM and deploy variable pricing.
I think the biggest concession the music label gave up was the pricing of downloading music directly to a mobile device. You can download the same song on to an iPhone (with iTunes) over the 3G network for the same cost as on a computer (with iTunes). Most mobile services can charge you up twice as much to download a song directly from your cell phone. I'm sure the music label gets a cut of that extra charge. Jobs is just trying to make the iPhone the best mobile phone to own, "one more thing", at a time.
LOL, I prefer it that the music company cannot pay their way to put the songs they like on the spot light, I like how Apple currently implements most popular, most downloaded things. Its better.
I wasn't taking a dig at Ms. Allen, I like her music actually (well the first album anyway), but at the time she said this she was a twenty something kid working on her first record who thought she knew everything about everything (as most kids that age do.)
Actually, I would have thought that being a twentysomething kid working on her first record, she'd be a lot more likely to get herself clued up on online distribution than other musicians who'd worked in th industry longer.
What exactly of significance was negotiated here that's in Apple's favor? We have Apple yielding to the music industry by providing variable pricing, while removing Fairplay DRM which Jobs said Apple didn't want to use but which actually would seem to have benefited the company by driving iPod sales. From this article, it seems Apple was the entity pushing for DRM, to be used as leverage against the music industry to maintain fixed pricing. Apple finally decided to drop its DRM and deploy variable pricing.
What Apple wanted was to sell iTunes on iPhone over cellular for the same prices. And they got it. Due to Apple's clever misdirection in focusing attention on the dropped DRM during MacWorld Expo, most people are just beginning to recognize that.
Know this: Apple's focus is on building the mobile platform for the future - that is, iPhone.
What Apple wanted was to sell iTunes on iPhone over cellular for the same prices. And they got it. Due to Apple's clever misdirection in focusing attention on the dropped DRM during MacWorld Expo, most people are just beginning to recognize that.
Know this: Apple's focus is on building the mobile platform for the future - that is, iPhone.
Hopefully they next negotiate that you can use any song as ringtone, it's ridiculous that you have to pay something extra for that.
It works with video because no-one want s to own videos. OK OK, some do but I can not understand why and for the most part people don't (except for Kid's vids, of course). Video's and movies are usually watched once only so a subscription makes sense. Music is different. Much more personal and listened to over and over.
Napster is an example of subscription music service. Pandora and Last.fm are just customized streaming radio that adapt to the listener.
I used to have Napster in my PC days. I thought it was wonderful. I could download all the latest music and still have access to everything older. $9.99/month for listening on the computer. $14.99/month for Napster To Go which was the same except you could also put it on your PlaysForSure digital music player as well. You don't ever have to "return" something like normally associated with renting. The exception was if the music studio decided they weren't going to offer it online anymore, but that seemed rare.
I would definitely go for it if Apple offered something like that. Being able to download anything with no extra cost really allows you to explore what you might not if you had to pay per track. Bad music? No big deal, it didn't cost anything extra. Good music? If it's done right, you never can tell you don't own it.
So you used to have Napster. You paid all those monthly fees. Are you still a subscriber? If not, you forgot to mention that once you stop paying, your music stops playing. So you wasted money on monthly fees when you could have purchased music elsewhere. I am sure you can tell you don't own it because you won't be able to play the music when you cancel. No one wants to rent music.
I am not familiar with the music biz, but can Apple have their own online music business and deal directly with the artists? Cut out the middlemen greedy record companies?
Right now software producers can sell all kinds of apps for the iPhone and iPod touch directly via iTunes. Why not for music? Also, those customers who want physicals CDs should be able to order directly from the iTunes page.
How is the dollar we pay to iTunes distributed? How much goes to Apple, the record company like Sony and artist?
I am not familiar with the music biz, but can Apple have their own online music business and deal directly with the artists? Cut out the middlemen greedy record companies?
Right now software producers can sell all kinds of apps for the iPhone and iPod touch directly via iTunes. Why not for music? Also, those customers who want physicals CDs should be able to order directly from the iTunes page.
How is the dollar we pay to iTunes distributed? How much goes to Apple, the record company like Sony and artist?
No, Apple cannot have their own music business because artists have CONTRACTS with music labels. The music labels control the distribution of their music. Independent artists will not give control to Apple because they are independent for a reason. However, you don't hear much about independent artists, do you? If you want physical CD's, go to Amazon.com or Best Buy. Apple makes very little money with the iTunes Store, but it allowed them to sell many more iPods.
So everyone agreed with Apple that DRM has to fall. Now we are suggesting that they bring it back in by offering a rental service. If you want to do the rental thing you have to apply DRM, so the music can only be played as long as you are paying for it and each player that should play this DRM'd music has incorporate this DRM.
Comments
I'm going to make it real clear for the record labels: the more complicated you make your pricing the less money you will make. Drop the egos. Jobs saved your ass so maybe you should defer to him on this. I don't worship the guy but it's just a fact. Without iTunes/Jobs you would all be screwed. Look, many people, like myself, use to download the majority of their music illegally. Why did we stop? Well, iTunes finally presented a REASONABLY PRICED and HIGH QUALITY alternative. One in which we could find the music quickly, easily download it and not worry about the safety or legality of the file. 99 cents is the intersection at which this makes sense. But what do the record labels suggest? "Hey, we're in a major recession! Let's look into raising prices! And maybe we'll try that subscription thing again! Let's give Apple a hard time even though they saved us!" Could these egomaniacs possibly be any dumber? A 5th grader would know that doesn't make sense.
Quit messing with something that works! If customers have to worry that prices will be raised or that they will not truly own music they paid for, they will go elsewhere. Again.
The record labels and the RIAA on the other hand must be rivalling Dubya in the unpopularity charts.
Hahaha...I think Dubya is more popular than them.
What's preventing the Apple staff from taking payola on the sly for recommending select music. Since they are the ones who choose the music.
And another thing, what qualification's do they have. Aw gee Larry I sure like that country western dress on the chick.......
They have the same qualifications that FM dj's did in radio's heyday: they are individuals with a point of view. Of course this is what the labels object to.. they want everything to be corporatized, homogenized, and dictated from the top. (Yes, in fact, they would prefer iPayola. History has proven that there's nothing they like better than controlling the 'airwaves' at any cost). The idea that Apple's staff needs "qualifications" (given out by who, the RIAA?) beyond their ears to provide an editorial point-of-view via their recommendations is just another way of trying to homogenize music culture in the same way the labels and Clear Channel successfully homogenized radio.
What exactly of significance was negotiated here that's in Apple's favor? We have Apple yielding to the music industry by providing variable pricing, while removing Fairplay DRM which Jobs said Apple didn't want to use but which actually would seem to have benefited the company by driving iPod sales. From this article, it seems Apple was the entity pushing for DRM, to be used as leverage against the music industry to maintain fixed pricing. Apple finally decided to drop its DRM and deploy variable pricing.
I think the biggest concession the music label gave up was the pricing of downloading music directly to a mobile device. You can download the same song on to an iPhone (with iTunes) over the 3G network for the same cost as on a computer (with iTunes). Most mobile services can charge you up twice as much to download a song directly from your cell phone. I'm sure the music label gets a cut of that extra charge. Jobs is just trying to make the iPhone the best mobile phone to own, "one more thing", at a time.
I wasn't taking a dig at Ms. Allen, I like her music actually (well the first album anyway), but at the time she said this she was a twenty something kid working on her first record who thought she knew everything about everything (as most kids that age do.)
Actually, I would have thought that being a twentysomething kid working on her first record, she'd be a lot more likely to get herself clued up on online distribution than other musicians who'd worked in th industry longer.
What exactly of significance was negotiated here that's in Apple's favor? We have Apple yielding to the music industry by providing variable pricing, while removing Fairplay DRM which Jobs said Apple didn't want to use but which actually would seem to have benefited the company by driving iPod sales. From this article, it seems Apple was the entity pushing for DRM, to be used as leverage against the music industry to maintain fixed pricing. Apple finally decided to drop its DRM and deploy variable pricing.
What Apple wanted was to sell iTunes on iPhone over cellular for the same prices. And they got it. Due to Apple's clever misdirection in focusing attention on the dropped DRM during MacWorld Expo, most people are just beginning to recognize that.
Know this: Apple's focus is on building the mobile platform for the future - that is, iPhone.
What Apple wanted was to sell iTunes on iPhone over cellular for the same prices. And they got it. Due to Apple's clever misdirection in focusing attention on the dropped DRM during MacWorld Expo, most people are just beginning to recognize that.
Know this: Apple's focus is on building the mobile platform for the future - that is, iPhone.
Hopefully they next negotiate that you can use any song as ringtone, it's ridiculous that you have to pay something extra for that.
It works with video because no-one want s to own videos. OK OK, some do but I can not understand why and for the most part people don't (except for Kid's vids, of course). Video's and movies are usually watched once only so a subscription makes sense. Music is different. Much more personal and listened to over and over.
The millions of DVD's sold prove you wrong.
Napster is an example of subscription music service. Pandora and Last.fm are just customized streaming radio that adapt to the listener.
I used to have Napster in my PC days. I thought it was wonderful. I could download all the latest music and still have access to everything older. $9.99/month for listening on the computer. $14.99/month for Napster To Go which was the same except you could also put it on your PlaysForSure
I would definitely go for it if Apple offered something like that. Being able to download anything with no extra cost really allows you to explore what you might not if you had to pay per track. Bad music? No big deal, it didn't cost anything extra. Good music? If it's done right, you never can tell you don't own it.
So you used to have Napster. You paid all those monthly fees. Are you still a subscriber? If not, you forgot to mention that once you stop paying, your music stops playing. So you wasted money on monthly fees when you could have purchased music elsewhere. I am sure you can tell you don't own it because you won't be able to play the music when you cancel. No one wants to rent music.
Right now software producers can sell all kinds of apps for the iPhone and iPod touch directly via iTunes. Why not for music? Also, those customers who want physicals CDs should be able to order directly from the iTunes page.
How is the dollar we pay to iTunes distributed? How much goes to Apple, the record company like Sony and artist?
I am not familiar with the music biz, but can Apple have their own online music business and deal directly with the artists? Cut out the middlemen greedy record companies?
Right now software producers can sell all kinds of apps for the iPhone and iPod touch directly via iTunes. Why not for music? Also, those customers who want physicals CDs should be able to order directly from the iTunes page.
How is the dollar we pay to iTunes distributed? How much goes to Apple, the record company like Sony and artist?
No, Apple cannot have their own music business because artists have CONTRACTS with music labels. The music labels control the distribution of their music. Independent artists will not give control to Apple because they are independent for a reason. However, you don't hear much about independent artists, do you? If you want physical CD's, go to Amazon.com or Best Buy. Apple makes very little money with the iTunes Store, but it allowed them to sell many more iPods.
Now we are back to 2008.
What's to stop Apple from taking all the money, and not sending any to the labels?
Contracts