Reluctant record labels voice concerns

If the artists aren't happy it has less to do with Apple and much more to do with the labels raping them of their just due compensation. To blame Apple for their unhappiness is irresponsible.

"Mr. Jobs, how is a record executive, like myself, supposed to show year-over-year profits without raping the public at large? I mean, now that they can get that hot new single from barely-clad 15 year olds without buying the whole (fairly priced, mind you) $22.00 album, I can barely afford to feed my own 15 year olds. Instead your vaunted iTunes product allows them to buy that single for a mere $0.99! If things don't change soon, we may be forced to actually pay artists to produce quality records. We haven't done that since the advent of MTV!!"

I don't agree single pricing is unique.

Look at video rentals, that's an industry that could have had unique pricing per rental based on perceived or actual popularity...but it doesn't.

online downloads of single music track, another industry that has developed around a single price point model.

Nothing weird about it, the fact that iPod's come in different prices, is completely irrelevant.

Be happy you are earning anything at all.

The world doesn't owe you a living, creeps.

Looking at these quotes, both are from people with an axe to grind against the iTMS. Sony BMG have been trying hard not to put its music on iTMS in new regions, instead preferring Sony's own service. AOL are now looking to launch their own service. These quotes are hardly surprising. "Move along, nothing to see here".

Look, we are talking about the popular music industry, right? Where artists have to pay for all their recording and touring expenses out of pocket, and all the "record" company executives do is market albums? So any comment from a music industry exec has to be taken through the filter of unadulterated greed, e.g. "We'd like different price points for hits and oldies" = "We want to make mor emoney than we did last year."

What neither Apple, nor the artists under contract to various labels, nor the would-be competitors of the iTMS have said alound is that they don't really need the music companies, whose only value-added is rapacious greed, much longer. As soon as every person under the age of 30 in the world has an MP3 player (next Thursday, I think), CD's become pretty meaningless. Cut out the middleman, and let the artists get more of that $0.99 a download.... and let the record company execs figure out how to earn a living for a change.

With Xbox, Internet, satellite radio, cable TV, pay per view movies, etc., people have more entertainment choices than they had even 10 years ago. It's no wonder music is having a tough time of it when there are so many recreational and artistic alternatives.

Additionally, look at the billboard top 100 on iTunes starting in 1990 or so when the explicit lyrics labeling came into being. You might have had one or two GnR songs with an expletive in there. Now the top 100 is flooded with them. I don't know about you, but I don't want to be sworn at continuously while trying to enjoy music, and I suspect the majority of Americans feel the same way. The music industry is focusing on such a vanishingly small consumer base - a base, not surprisingly, which has the least disposable income - that they've worked themselves into a corner.

And not only that, how do the record label execs get off telling Apple that 99 cents is too little when they sell a 12 song CD for 13 bux and have to produce the disk, packaging, warehousing, and delivery logistics? No, the issue is control. The labels want to push who and what they want to push and they see this thing called iTunes as an interloper on their turf.

Furthering the cutting out of the "recording industry" middle man are software pieces like LogicPro. I use that for everything from visualization (audio tinkering in my case) to post production finish work. I'd never be able to afford a studio, but I have all of the millions of dollars worth of equiptment contained withing a coupled hundred dollars worth (student priced) of software. It's absolutely amazing what you can do.

I see this middleman eventually being cut out entirely. Where could they go from there to find a niché?

What would happen is a band like U2 or someone like them told the record company to go stuff it because they were dealing directly with Apple. You'd really hear some whining from them. I think if the labels do decide to "deliver a decapacitating blow" to Apple we will all see variable pricing and they will see the increase in Music Piracy.

They talk about CD sales dropping. They seem to not realize that if they stopped producing a lot of Crap and trying all this Copy Protection crap they might see an increase in sales. This will be an interesting thing to see how it plays out.

Are you sure iTunes pricing isn't unique? Last time I was at a video store, the new releases cost quite a bit more than the older videos in the catalog. Granted, that's only two or three levels of pricing, but that's still quite different from the iTMS.

Variable pricing is certainly the norm for video games, movies, music--any medium for entertainment that you can purchase new. I think variable pricing for the iTMS makes sense too, assuming they move the cheap-end titles far below the current 99 cent price point. Not that I want them to make that move.

But I think Jobs is smart enough to realize that consumers hold a detonator, albeit an illegal one, to the whole works: they can download a track off P2P instead. "99 cents per track" sounds great, though I don't imagine that Jobs would never be party to a price increase. He, at least, seems to be looking at both sides of the table.

I don't know how the RIAA got so far away from their customers to think that we'll pay whatever they please. Maybe it's like movie theater popcorn: enough people buy it at $5.99 a bag that they think they're making more than if the sold it for less to more people. That works as long as they can keep new releases trapped at theaters, but when other avenues open to see first-run movies, that system is sure to be challenged.

But it doesn't matter how many blogs or news organizations shout for the music labels to embrace the new reality. Until there are more alternative choices to force their hand, the music industry can continue to gouge and alienate their customers. I guess I'd be happy for them to innovate. Right now I just hope they fold.