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“The music industry hopes to benefit from a battle for control of the mobile phone and computer desktop between Apple and Google as both technology giants go head-to-head in a wide range of media and consumer technology areas including online TV and movies, mobile phones, software and even advertising,” Adegoke reports. “Music is the latest area they are likely to compete in even though Apple had a major head-start on Google, with its 7-year dominance through iTunes Music Store, which accounts for 70 percent of all U.S. digital music sales.”
Adegoke reports, “Google has yet to sign any licensing deals with major labels, these people say, but it hasn’t stopped the labels getting excited about the prospect of its entry to the business and what competition with iTunes could mean for the industry.”
“Music executives have long believed having other competing powerful digital music retailers could help expand the market,” Adegoke reports. “While digital album sales are up 13 percent year-to-date from the year-ago period, sales of individual songs have held steady, according to Nielsen SoundScan.”
MacDailyNews Take: If the dumbass music cartels hadn’t forced Apple to up new tracks to $1.29 in exchange for dropping the labels’ beloved DRM, then individual song sales would have increased instead. In fact, the labels are damn lucky they held steady.
Adegoke reports, “But just being big won’t be enough even for a company of Google’s size and capabilities. Leading online retailer Amazon.com Inc. launched its MP3 store in 2007 but still only has just over 12 percent market share. ‘We’re cautiously optimistic because Google has great scale and reach but doesn’t have a track record in selling stuff,’ said another label executive who declined to be named as the talks are still ongoing.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Music execs, before you get too excited, please see the related articles below. Now, what the hell are you guys dreaming of, exactly? Playing Apple against a Google or some other mythical competitor is going to achieve what? $1.49 tracks? $1.79? $1.99? The return of DRM, perhaps? Forced bundling, sorry, “album-only” sales? What, exactly? What’s this oh-so-coveted “competition” supposed to deliver to the music industry? A lessening of Jobs’ wise guidance and influence?
Be careful what you wish for, music cartels: Jobs saved (and every day continues to save) your asses and everything that you idiots dream up on your own fails miserably.