“Apple computer is having dramatic success in the music business, in an area where all others have failed – selling music on the web. According to the company, its new service, iTunes Music Store, has sold about 3 million songs online at a price of 99 cents each in its first month of operation, which beats what anyone else has achieved,” reports Robin Bloor for IT-Director.com
Bloor continues, “The success is even more remarkable if you consider the fact that the service is currently confined to Mac users who make up less than 1 percent of home PC users in the US and that currently it does not include all music labels.”
“Naturally, Apple is now thinking of porting the software to Windows. If you do the mathematics, this could expand the market by a factor of 100, and Apple may be staring a $3billion per annum market straight in the face. And this is just for the music itself, never mind the iMacs, iPods and software it could sell,” Bloor writes. “However, it may not be so easy to realise this in practical business terms, even if the market is as large as it appears to be. Apple has to find a way of remaining in harmony with the music industry, which means staying ahead of the music pirates.”
Bloor concludes, “It’s a balancing act. All the major music labels currently support iTunes and if they were to withdraw their support the service would die.”
Full article here.
Future News:
Apple announces another addition to its digital hub strategy… Leroy from the RIAA is making home visits to all you bad mac users.
Red Herring. Imagine the sucess of clothing stores depending on whether there are shoplifters in the world.
The real issue is whether we allow the record companies using the business model from the 19th century to define how we buy music in a digital age. I maintain that they are dinosaurs.
I can imagine a band going directly to Apple to have their music listed.
In other words, “WE DON’T NEED NO STINKING RECORD COMPANIES”
Cinque
Simultaneous All Media Release (“SAM-R”) is the practical alternative to illegal peer-to-peer file sharing. Record labels, movie studios and book publishers would still do their same pre-release publicity and promotions. The only change would be, all new products would be released to all media simultaneously. Illegal file sharing is perceived to be the death knell of intellectual property. In reality, this enormous borderless threat provides an opportunity for the creation of a new business model. The intellectual property industry can potentially flourish like never before, but at a vastly accelerated pace. The demand for music, movies and books will grow rapidly, due to a literal “Tsunami Wave” of 80 million American teenagers in the year 2010. Accelerated release schedules for music, movies and books would keep writers, engineers, editors, technicians and other key support people employed. The rapid delivery of new, creatively packaged media in various forms, will keep young buyers engaged. Napster was the opening salvo in the coming “era of dominance” by this, a new generation of young people. Their impact and influence will be great. Through new business practices such as “SAM-R”, we will be able to accomodate them, while also insuring that the continued employment of those people who create and support intellectual property remains a viable reality.