“After years of complaints, last year the music labels finally got what they wanted from Apple–the ability to raise prices on their songs,” Peter Kafka reports for AllThingsD. “Last April, iTunes introduced a ‘variable pricing’ scheme, which gave the labels the ability to move prices from 99 cents a song to $1.29 (and for some tracks, down to 69 cents).”

Kafka reports, “The results? Music sales are slowing.”

MacDailyNews Take: Shocking.

Kafka reports, “Warner Music Group said this morning that it has seen unit sales growth at Apple’s iTunes decelerate since the price increase: Industry-wide, year-over-year ‘digital track equivalent album unit growth’ was at 5 percent in the December quarter, down sequentially from 10 percent in the September quarter and 11 percent in the June quarter.”

“Warner CEO Edgar Bronfman Jr. argued that the pricing change has been a ‘net positive’ for Warner. But he also suggested that in hindsight, perhaps it wasn’t a great idea to raise prices 30 percent during a recession,” Kafka reports. “So here’s the question for the book industry, which has been working very hard to boost the price for its digital goods: Which lesson do you learn from this?”

Kafka writes, “My gut is that the industry will see this parable the way Bronfman apparently does: If you can move prices up early in the digital adoption cycle, you’re much better off.”

Full article here.