“‘EMI Group boss Alain Levy said at press conference today that he believed Jobs would introduce multiple price points for iTunes music within the next year,’ Forbes recently reported. The story they’re trying to tell you is that ‘older, less popular songs could be discounted, and in-demand singles could go for more than a dollar.’ Let’s think this through, because I think the recording industry is lying about why they want different prices,” Joel Spolsky writes for Joel on Software.
“The reason the music recording industry wants different prices has nothing to do with making a premium on the best songs. What they really want is a system they can manipulate to send signals about what songs are worth, and thus what songs you should buy. I assure you that when really bad songs come out, as long as they’re new and the recording industry wants to promote those songs, they’ll charge the full $2.49 or whatever it is to send a fake signal that the songs are better than they really are. It’s the same reason we’ve had to put up with crappy radio for the last few decades: the music industry promotes what they want to promote, whether it’s good or bad, and the main reason they want to promote something is because that’s a bargaining chip they can use in their negotiations with artists,” Spolsky writes.
“Here’s the dream world for the EMI Group, Sony/BMG, etc.: there are two prices for songs on iTunes, say, $2.49 and $0.99. All the new releases come out at $2.49. Some classic rock (Sweet Home Alabama) is at $2.49. Unwanted, old, crap, like, say, Brandy (You’re A Fine Girl) — the crap we only know because it was pushed on us in the 70s by paid-off disk jockeys — would be deliberately priced at $0.99 to send a clear message that $0.99 = crap,” Spolsky writes. “And now when a musician gets uppity, all the recording industry has to do is threaten to release their next single straight into the $0.99 category, which will kill it dead no matter how good it is. And suddenly the music industry has a lot more leverage over their artists in negotiations: the kind of leverage they are used to having. Their favorite kind of leverage. The ‘we won’t promote your music if you don’t let us put rootkits on your CDs’ kind of leverage.”
Full article here.
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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.