MacDailyNews - Where Mac news comes first

Those Bastards

Interesting take, different from the usual greedo take, and certainly believable.

Marketing is the art of convincing people to spend additional amounts of money for something they really never needed in the first place.

It is always possibly and wouldnt really surprise me at all.

Damn corporate America.....DAMN THEM TO HELL!

MW: I wish that "justice" wasn't blind, then she could see what the people of the world have done to her.

I feel like I've been violated

I'll ignore the new stuff at $2.49, it's crap anyway.
But please, give us the old stuff at a decent price, $0.29 let day.

I was gonna answer this one question pop quiz by saying 'greed', but the explanation here will suffice, as it is the same answer but with more info.

Well, in a way I would be happy to see this. Most of the stuff I buy on iTunes are individual old songs I don't own in any other format and wouldn't want to buy the whole album of. My cart has hundreds of songs in it so I can wait for them to come down.

Pricing sends a signal? This must the lamest theory yet of why the music labels want to control the marketplace themselves and reap more profits.

How's this for a signal: Apple has a pure moneymaker here and the labels are powerless to muck it up. They could walk away, but it would be walking away from serious profits and chart sales.

Marketing is the way that people get the idea what is supposed to be big, just like the Movie business -- one ticket price for all movies.

I mean, who gives a shiite if they want to highlight newer titles with higher prices? Good for them! But if the consumers are grabbing older titles for the same money, or other bands are catching on greater than other bands -- maybe the consumer will actually be more content and happy and the music industry will dominate again.

Regular and new tunes---99c. Old tunes ---50c. Sold!

Don't really agree with this theory. I do agree with the idea that they want to charge as much as someone will pay, which will not happen in the $0.99 model.

I also suspect that this signal a gradual shift upward in the median price. It only makes sense that if things are priced according to demand, with the most popular at $3 (OH, sorry, I meant $2.99...) and the least at $0.99, then things of average popularity, of which there are the most, will be at $2..no, wait! $1.99! Therefore, it won't just affect the Britneys and other pop songs, but will end up jacking up the prices of most titles.

If they actually get a scheme in place that charges 2.50 for new songs, the quality of which is *worse* than a CD, then they'll drive iTunes out of business. It's already about the same to buy an album off of iTunes as it is to buy a CD, and the quality is so much better on the CD that for me, at least, it makes iTunes a hard sell right now. Raise the price on some songs, and forget it.

One sure way to get Steve Jobs to NOT do something is to announce it before he does.

I don't require some dickbrained EMI Alain Levy to tell me what music is "crap" and "non-crap." I have my own ears and mind.

P.S.
Mr. Levy: You may jump up and kiss my Okie ass.

I swear if iTunes songs eclipse $1.00 US then I'll stop buying music and learn to make my own.

And if Gasoline ever reaches $2.00 a gallon, er I mean $3.0- oh 4 bucks then I'll stop driving and get a horse & buggy.

Who's to say that given a free choice, an artist might prefer to sell lots of copies at ¢99, rather than a few copies at $2.49 ?

As the report suggested, they might enjoy the kudos of being in the higher price category, but they might prefer being in the higher income category instead.

You are all missing the big picture here.

Brandy (You're a Fine Girl) is an excellent track. The sad, sweet tale of a lonely barmaid who was left behind to remind those men who belong to the sea that there is another world for them, if they only have the courage to embrace it.

If that's (magic word) not worth $2.49, I don't know what is.

Greedy, simple as that.

PC Apologist -

I'd pay $2.99 if there was a guarantee that I'd never have to hear that song again. ; )

I have to take a crap. That'll be 99 cents please.

Joel Spolsky has a point, we iTunes users have a choice if we like a song we buy it.

Even if it's 29¢ song, if it's not something one is willing to listen to over and over, why waste 29¢?

Look here, I got the Complete U2, every darn song they ever made, do I listen to all of the songs? No. Just a few good ones. Technically I should have saved my money and bought just those songs. Am I some sort of DJ that needs tons of songs to grant everyones wishes? No. So why buy them?

I was still locked into the idea of "buying albums" and it has cost me dearly. Now I buy just only what I want to hear and even if the crap songs were free I wouldn't want to bother hogging up drive space for them.

So Joel Spolsky is absolutely right, it's a power trip by the labels testing Apple's resolve, seeing if they can do buisness as usual.

I'm emailing Steve on this.

"Brandy, You're a Fine Girl" ROCKS!

Give me a reasonably priced subscription service where I can get a complete listen of a substantial selection of artists/albums from which I can then identify which albums/artists I want to buy so I can then go out and buy the full quality CD and I'll be happy.

I guarantee that what the labels want is pricing STARTING at 99 cents and up from there.

Be vigilant.

They want variable pricing to control their artists? Sorry, that presumption is way over the top ... stupid, even. They want variable pricing for many reasons, including some related to control of their artists or even iTMS, but mostly to maximize the value of their titles - old and new.

Even so, I think Jobs hit the sweet spot with his pricing model, even if it is rather idealistic. Discounting older titles while putting a premium on newer ones (driving cosumers to p2p) could result in less revenue overall.

The problem is, RIAA bigwigs aren't thinking clearly. Instead of concentrating on adding value to physical media (multi-discs and dvd), or embracing/studying online delivery solutions, they are sitting on their desks, sipping Pinot, twirling pencils, blowing smoke-rings towards the ceiling, and thinking very, very small thoughts.

I agree: Brandy is a killer track.

You know, I don't even know what the dudes from Looking Glass look like...

Just Googled em...
http://www.webfitz.com/lyrics/Lyrics/1972/lglass.jpg

Anyway, I still agree that Brandy was a fine track (a fine track), what a good track it would be (such a fine track)...

Ha - what a freakin hoot... I love 70s pop...

here is my playlist...

• Landslide - Fleetwood MAc
• 10cc - I'm Not In Love
• Coven - One Tin Soldier
• 5 Stairsteps - Ooh Child... Over The Edge Song...
• Sweet - Fox on the Run
• Brandy - Looking Glass
• Summer Breeze - Seals & Crofts
• Byrds - Eight Miles High
• Ian Matthews - Shake It
• Ventura Highway - America
• Firefall - Strange Way
• Dont Fear the Reaper - BoC
• Oh What a Night - Frankie Valli
• Talk Talk - It's My Life**
• Peter Gabriel - Solsbury Hill
• Jefferson Starship - Miracles
• Simon & Garfunkel - Scarborough Fair
• Tin Man - America
• Simon and Garfunkel - Hazy Shade of Winter
• Gordan Lightfoot - The Wreck of Edmund Fitzgerald
• Knights in white satin - moody blues
• Crosby Still - Wasted on the Way
• America - A Horse with no Name


Brandy is right in there...


A message to the powers that be:

99¢ is what got me to buy music again - PERIOD. Break that dollar barrier - boom, I'm gone.

Luckily, one mans trash is anothers treasure.

If only iTunes soold Shannon by Henry Gross WITHOUT Will Ferrell crying over the track.

eat that.

The Music Co.s are trying to bullshit us with the "older songs would be discounted" crap. You can be sure that it will end up cost the consumer more if they get their way. Else why would they do it?

I think it would be smarter if they LOWERED the prices across the board so more and more people would start using it (and more pirating people become legit). Say 50 cents or even 25 cents per song. With the costs they save in distribution I think there is a very good chance that in the long run this could end up making them much more cash. Certainly more than if they continue to pursue DRM schemes that are too restrictive and so are hacked and ultimately are meaningless.

THAT is how the Music Co.s should be fighting pirating. With convenience and lack of viruses at a painless price point.

It's not just greed, it's more about power and control.

MW= trial
as in, that's where these guys should be held accountable.

The recording industry is so clueless.

And I pretty much mean everybody, including the artists. Oh hell, particularly the artists. If any artist had a clue they would never sign a contract that, for all intents and purposes, makes them an indentured servant.

Then there's the business end of the recording industry. The phrase, "Cutting off your nose to spite your face" comes to mind whenever I hear a new piece of dreck (like two-tiered pricing) that they come up. Clueless just doesn't begin to descibe how short-sighted these clown-farts are.

Conspiracy theory has its merits. This one at lease, is entertaining.

Oops! That should have been, "This one, at least, is entertaining.

Well if they are going to charge $2.49 for a song I guess im gonna start downloading illegally then.

I will not pay that amount for a 3 minute song.

They do this and you can say goodbye to the legal music download market!

What they should be doing is have 99c as the price for chart or most demand music and have 59c for everything else.

REDUCE the price - NOT increase it!!

GREEDY BASTARDS.

Hey Petey..

Pay more for the files which we know are the most accessible on file sharing networks?