“Highlighting ongoing tension between the music industry and Apple Inc., Vivendi SA’s Universal Music Group is set to notify the Cupertino, Calif. company that it is not renewing a long term contract to sell digital music downloads through the increasingly powerful iTunes Store, according to people familiar with the situation,” Ethan Smith and Nick Wingfield report for The Wall Street Journal.
“The move does not mean, however, that Universal will remove its vast catalog… from iTunes in the foreseeable future. Instead, Universal, which is the world’s largest music company by market share, expects to go to a short-term sales agreement,” Smith and Nick Wingfield report. “Though it is unlikely to have sweeping effects immediately, the change could give Universal more flexibility in its dealings with competitors to iTunes.”
Full article (subscription required) here.
Oh, ok.
iTunes is the number 3 music retailer.
‘Nuff said
Jobs gave them a gift, so they wouldn’t lose via illegal downloads, and now they are going to fsck around.
Boycott their music!
Um…….so…….that means less crappy music on iTunes? Sounds good to me.
There is no competitor in the online music space.
Now with the iPhone and soon to follow iPhone-esque iPod there will be little hope for the also rands.
Universal name change? Provincial?
iTunes has competitors?
iTunes competitors?! wtflip?! iTunes doesn’t have any direct competition worth mentioning unless you count illegal downloading/file sharing – and I highly doubt Universal wants them to increase their ‘market share.’
Sign sign? What what? Editor editor?
Just for noogies, check out the “Drudge Report” site for its take on the above article: It’s the end of Apple! It’s the end of downloadable music! Oh my gawd! It’s Armageddon!
NOTE TO UNIVERSAL: If you cease and desist from making your music available to customers EASILY and LEGITIMATELY, they (we) will go back to getting it even EASIER and ILLEGITIMATELY!
What complete dumbasses.
If they screw around I don’t have a problem NOT buying any Universal music. How about you?
The record companies are in freefall, and they are scared as they stumble around in the business model free zone they have constructed for themselves. This is a half-assed attempt to gain bargaining power with Apple. Whatever the short term conseqences, there will be no long term consequences, as the big record companies such as Universal won’t even exist in another four years, at least not in their current bloated form. Hell, Paul McCartney is with Starbucks now. That says it all.
Count me in, I won’t buy Universal Music otherwise Universal Music may complain to RIAA that I buy illegal songs which I didn’t even know.
So I don’t have time for this S**T!
Universal, can you say BITTORRENT? Effective immediately, we all start uploading anything Universal to BITTORRENT. Everyone join in. And when they back down from this struggle with Apple, we’ll stop.
I don’t see a press release anywhere from either Apple or Vivendi. I have a feeling that this is a bogus story. It makes no sense at all. I think that this is along the same lines as the BS memo that the IPhone was delayed till October. Im not buying this.
Early Adopter, I completely agree, but I don’t think they will go away, exactly, though. Everything else you said is exactly correct IMO.
“half-assed attempt to gain bargaining power with Apple” is exactly what this is.
Pure desperation.
If Universal doesn’t like Apple’s terms for iTunes–F*ck’em!
Consumers don’t buy iPods because they can download Universal songs off of iTunes–duh!! Apple doesn’t even make much money off of iTunes. People will keep buying iPods, and also buy a lot of iPhones, regardless of whether Universal is on iTunes. The only result of this will be that Universal will lose a lot of money–good! That’ll show the other recording companies.
Here’s the scenario being played out:
Universal asks for .95 per iPod sold (that’s a .05 cent discount from the Zune rate). Jobs tells them to get lost (in more graphic language). Universal spins it to say they’re going short-term (if at all) and maybe working with iTunes competitors like Zune.
Over time this will lead to more people using illegal and quasi-legal avenues to get their music.
Most music lovers would prefer an inexpensive and reliable online experience. And surveys have said exactly the same thing. If the copyright owners try to screw around on this by price gouging, making the purchase and download an unpleasant experience, then consumers will switch off and go to illegal and quasi-legal sites to source their music. Universal has a decision to make and if they get it wrong they’ll be the ones who suffer.
The entire music industry is a bunch of ungrateful greedy a**holes. Steve Jobs SAVED the music industry from THEIR OWN greediness, and now they’re becoming greedy all over again. UNIVERSAL, BITE OUR ASS!
Bite our ASSES, not ASS. Made a grammatical error when I was trying to yell at Universal.
Demonoid, here we come! (Hurry back online, OK? Can’t wait to start “sharing” Universal products!)
Lots of strategy being played out by Redmond – so they think.
– A new Zune launch (an improved from the ground up device), this August, coupled with an exclusive Universal Deal.
– Universal gets paid bank for the deal, which is why they are willing to believe this might actually work, when in about 6 months time they will realize they have screwed themselves big time.
What will happen:
Universal and Redmond will pimp the new Zune, and Universal exclusivity. The problem? Redmond will stick with their DRM-ing of music, while Apple will have another major label or two going non-DRM/higher quality on iTunes.
If Redmond fell in the forrest would anyone here it? – or care?
The only bright spot Redmond has is if they de-DRM the content with this move. Then they have the right idea in strategy, and stand a chance at hurting iPod, rather than just eating their own.
If I were a betting man, I’d put my money on Apple doing enough with the new iPod video to stifle anything Redmond tries to pull, coupled with the odds of Redmond screwing this up being quite high.
What Universal fails to understand, is that if they yank their catalog from the iTMS, people will continue to listen to it on their iPods. They’ll just rip CDs, or get it from a P2P network, just like they did before the iTMS existed.
-jcr
What Universal fails to understand, is that if they yank their catalog from the iTMS, people will continue to listen to it on their iPods. They’ll just rip CDs, or get it from a P2P network, just like they did before the iTMS existed.
-jcr